


Roots and Wings

by CMOTScribbler



Series: epilogue of sorts [2]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: British India, Gen, Post-Canon, first opium war, the Around The World in 80 Days crossover nobody asked for but here you are anyways, the Laurence patchwork family continued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2020-03-02 20:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 118,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18818674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMOTScribbler/pseuds/CMOTScribbler
Summary: Continuing the silliness of “One for the Corps” (sorry)As one clever person once said, there are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings. But if the wings part means you have a dragon to hand on, things are bound to become a little more complicated...So in 1838, the next generation proudly uphold the Laurence-Rankin feud, HMS Temeraire doesn’t quite get tugged to her last berth, HMD Temeraire almost gets through two captains in three days, and Ning wreaks havoc in China.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _As this story is getting a bit too long and I don’t manage to update frequently, I've decided to preface each chapter with a synopsis of the previous chapter. Hope it makes it easier to follow!_

Born into an Aerial Corps family of fame and notoriety, William Tenzing Laurence, youngest son of the fabled Admiral Laurence of Temeraire whom every child in England had heard about, had grown up in the conscience of being a vast disappointment.

His family called him Little Will, only superficially to avoid confusion with his father’s name, whom even his mother Jane addressed as Laurence – _William_ being reserved for when she was either exceptionally happy, or furious. Rather, only the shortest and littlest of names seemed to do justice to as slight a child as him.

From the cradle, he was small and sickly and did not eat or grow well, to the extent that strangers commonly assumed he was Horatio’s younger brother by a year at least, rather than his twin. Horatio was everything Little Will was not – he was strong, brave and stubborn where Will was quiet, withdrawn and shy.

The only thing the brothers had in common was their unconditional love of dragons, and of Temeraire in particular, who clearly was the finest beast in all of England. They could spend countless hours clambering about his back acting out aerial battles, and sometimes their father and Mr Tharkay could be persuaded to join in. On these joyful occasions, Horatio always wanted to be captain, which Little Will gladly let him, himself preferring the role of cook. Laurence and Tharkay stood in as signal-ensigns, runners, riflemen, lieutenants, or enemy boarding party, as required. If the twins couldn’t sleep, they would evade their nurse and sneak out, blankets and all, to Temeraire’s pavilion. They knew no greater happiness than being tucked under the canopy of the great Celestial’s wing, snuggled against the smooth scales while listening to Temeraire’s stories of exploration and adventure. Little Will was fascinated by all stories concerning foreign lands, while Horatio mainly wanted to hear about battle. Whenever Temeraire had to leave the Peaks again to resume his seat in parliament, the boys counted the days to his return.

Horatio couldn’t wait to join an aerial crew himself. Their father, although not generally opposed to the notion of him being given to the Corps, did not want to part with him until he was at least ten years old. However, it turned out he had little choice in the matter. Jane and Excidium paid them a short visit one summer day, on their way to Edinburgh, but scarcely half an hour after they had left again for the second leg of their journey, the great Longwing could be seen beating back towards their valley, to land outside Castleton Hall.

Jane disembarked, dragging a sullen Horatio behind her.

“Mother, please!“ Horatio wailed.

“It is Admiral Roland to you, Master Laurence,” she snapped, an angry furrow across her forehead as she marched him back to the front door, under the stares of her dragon and crew.

“Look what starts he is getting himself into!” she told Laurence, “He hid in the belly-netting.”

“But I want to go flying!” Horatio shouted, tears streaming down his face, “I don’t want to be shut up in the library memorizing stupid books. Will can do that, he likes it, but it’s _killing_ me!”

Laurence sighed and sent Horatio to bed without dinner, a fairly lenient punishment. The next day, he wrote a letter to Admiral Granby of Iskierka, to ask whether he might be persuaded to take Horatio as a runner. Two months later, Granby and Iskierka came to collect him. Horatio strutted about in his runners’ uniform and walked up to the steaming monster without the least hesitation, while Little Will had to muster all his strength not to hide behind his nurse’s skirts, and when Horatio turned to wave his goodbye, it was Will who was crying. Temeraire nudged him consolingly. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, perfectly audible across the yard, “He won’t like it much. He’ll be back in no time, I’m sure.”

For the first time Will knew, Temeraire was proven wrong, for Horatio did not come back. He sent letters, in his wonky writing littered with spelling mistakes, noting the places they’d visited, the things he’d learned, and the first man he'd killed, when they sunk a pirate ship near Gibraltar and its aerial support of brigand ferals laid them a trap. Little Will, alone and wretched, sought consolation in the library. At seven years old, he had read several encyclopaedias and all the dragon books he could lay his hands on, and was starting on Chinese and Hindi under the tutelage of his godfather, Mr Tharkay. When Temeraire and Laurence returned for Christmas, Temeraire was delighted to find he and Little Will could now talk Mandarin to one another. He started to teach him Chinese characters, scratched out in the snow, _Auspicious Holidays_ , and _Hello Ho-ra-tsio_ , in case Iskierka and Horatio should happen to be pass by overhead, although his brother of course wouldn’t have been able to read any of it.

Laurence was worried. “It cannot be normal for a child his age,” he said to Tharkay, “to be burying himself behind books quite so much. He is all pale and skinny – oughtn’t he be running around and strengthening his body?”

When he and Temeraire departed for London again, after Boxing Day, he insisted Little Will accompany them. Will was excited to be travelling on Temeraire, yet sad to leave Tharkay’s library behind – his mother’s house in London, for all its grandeur, had no such thing. The day after their arrival, Laurence took him to the dockyards by the river. Little Will proudly walked by his father’s side, at times running a little to keep up, and looked around wide-eyed. The strangest goods were being unloaded from the holds of the ships arriving there, boxes of tea and porcelain from China, bundles of furs from the Americas, African ivory, marble, timber, bales of cotton, even a gaggle of monkeys and a live giraffe for some rakish gentleman’s menagerie. Little Will took it all in with his mouth half-open, holding on tight to his father’s hand so as to not get lost in the crowd. There were people of all colours and tongues, richly dressed to wretched, and on the river, a bustle of crafts, a few graceful clippers like oversized swans, and between them smaller rowing boats, barges and the new brutish steamboats choking black clouds into the air. Laurence pointed out a few ships to him, praising their speed or capacity, and went through the names of their different sails, terms as fantastic as _studding sails_ and _moonrakers_.

“When we have time, we will fly to Plymouth and see some of the Navy ships there – I’ve read that the _Téméraire_ is expected back in harbour very soon,” he said, and Little Will nodded eagerly. He would quite like to see Temeraire’s namesake, and it would be nice to have something a little more interesting to write about to Horatio. His father smiled at him, quite misinterpreting his enthusiasm. “Perhaps when you are a little older, you would like to go to sea, too?”

The smile died on Little Will’s face. He tried to say something, but he could feel a lump in his throat, and tears rising in his eyes. His father patted his back, and said they ought to go home, smiling as he spoke, but the disappointment was plain in his eyes. “My, my, William, you cannot always be crying – you are growing too old for it,” he murmured before he hailed a carriage to take them back, but this was the last straw for Little Will. He burst out crying, angry with himself for having ruined the wonderful day with his father. He sure wouldn’t be taken out again any time soon.

Back at their town house, he wanted to run straight to Temeraire. But when he entered the yard, he nearly stumbled on a spiky serpentine tail, and the next moment, Horatio come rushing from a side-corridor where he had hidden to lay ambush, with a war-howl, and knocked him over.

Will hastily wiped the tears from his eyes as he hugged his brother. “Horatio! I’ve missed you so very much!”

Horatio grinned, freeing himself from Will’s grip with the air of someone far above such childish displays of affection. He had put on half a foot in length since they had last met and his face was sun-burnt, already losing its childlike roundness. His fair hair had grown long, and after extracting a promise from Will not to tell anyone, he proudly revealed a small tattoo on his left ankle, hidden under his stocking, of a dragon breathing fire, which he had acquired in Malaga while out on ground-leave with Iskierka’s midwingmen.

Will gasped. “But Horatio! That’s a Kazilik! Surely Temeraire won’t like it, if he sees it?”

Horatio folded his arms. “Well, he needn’t see it…. Tell me, what have you been up to, little brother?”

“Nothing much,” Will admitted.

Creeping up to the sitting room that night to fetch a book he had forgotten on the setee, he chanced upon his father and Admiral Granby in conversation.

“And there is no way I can convince you to let me have Horatio for Iskierka?” the Admiral was asking, “I have to confess myself very impressed with him. He is fearless as anything, and already showing great promise. The one time I’ve had to discipline him, he had pushed in a fellow’s nose for ridiculing his name… and Iskierka even listens to him, occasionally, would you credit it?”

Laurence sighed. “I would with all my heart, John, but what am I to do? Can you imagine his brother taking on Temeraire? I love them both dearly, but there is no denying that Will is no fit for the service. My mother thinks we ought to send him to boarding school… I’ve never liked the thought of it, and Temeraire is outright opposed, but I am running out of other ideas.”

Will shrunk into the darkness, clutching his book. Each word cut him. His father thought him a coward.

He was enrolled at a school in Bedfordshire later that year, and was secretly glad of it, for a month before he left, his mother retired from the service, handing Excidium’s command to her eldest daughter Emily. When she joined them in the East Wing of Castelton Hall, she brought with her a stormy little girl called Isabella, Emily’s daughter. Will had always been a little scared of his mother. Admiral Roland hadn’t ever done anything deliberately cruel to him, but she seemed to look straight through him most of the time, as if so quiet and weak a son wasn’t worthy of her attention.

At his new school, he was dreadfully homesick for the first few weeks, missing his father and Mr Tharkay and most of all Temeraire. Afterwards, things improved. He was allowed to read as much as he liked, and his neat writing, impeccable spelling, and arithmetic earned him praise instead of worried glances. While Horatio circled the globe on Iskierka and made lieutenant at the age of seventeen, Will ran out of books to read in the school library and went on to Oxford University, on a scholarship, to the consternation of his father and mild amusement of his mother.

He had resolved to become a dragon-surgeon, and redeem himself a little in the eyes of his family, but he felt so violently sick at the sight of his first dissection that he quickly abandoned that plan. He tried Divinity, but found it useless, and dabbled in Orientalism; however, the lectures were dry and boring compared to discussing the Analects with a Celestial. He finally stumbled into a lecture on comparative anatomy and taxonomy which instantly hooked him when the lecturer brought out the massive skull of a Parnassian, next to a fragile lizard’s skull, and invited them to think about how the two of them might be connected. The scientist’s name was Sir Richard Owen, and he was a distinguished expert in the field of draconology. Will listened to all his lectures enraptured, a wholly new way of looking at his favourite subject suddenly opening before him. By the end of Michaelmas term he had finished all of Owen’s books in his college’s library, and finally plucked up the courage to see his hero, and inquire whether he might be able to assist him in his work.

“William Laurence junior, eh?” the professor said abrasively as he gathered up his papers after the lecture. “Well, we’ve all heard of your father, the first to bring a Chinese Celestial to these shores, although I must say he has been quite unwilling to let his dragon be subjected to any form of proper scientific examination, which is a shame.”

Will blushed. He had always shied away from taking advantage of his father’s fame which was a double-edged sword at best, earning him the icy contempt of fellow students from conservative-voting families and the awestruck whispers of those from more liberal-leaning backgrounds, everyone with an idea of him already formed in their heads before they had even met him. But if it should help him get a foot in the door with Professor Owen, so be it. “Perhaps I might speak to father, and Temeraire,” he volunteered.

The draconologist looked at him over the rim of his glasses. “You might indeed.” He sat down. “I have a few theories on the development of dragons’ speech – the throat of a lizard being entirely unsuited to the production of speech, and the voice-box of a dragon so very different from that of humans – which would greatly benefit from some close observations made in a Celestial, the most articulate of all dragon breeds, while at the same time capable of the Divine Wind… which is again entirely uncharted sea, scientifically speaking. It is a shame we have no hope of the beast dying in either of our lifetimes, so someone else will have the pleasure of his dissection.”

“Begging your pardon?” Will stammered, but Owen continued to tidy away his papers unperturbed, and he realized the last remark had been meant in earnest.

This was his welcome to the world of draconology, a strange cloistered field almost entirely steeped in theory and comparative anatomy of skulls and bones stored in the vaults of the zoology museum. Will had found his calling. He spent hours sorting scales and teeth in the zoology archive, days closeted in the university library combing through medieval bestiaries and books-of-hours for descriptions of dragon hunts and hoards. When the first snow dusted the college greens, Little Will was figuring out a way of dissolving dragon coprolites in sulphuric acid to study the bone fragments contained therein, to disprove the notion that the first dragons of the British Isles had been man-eating beasts. His fellow students thought him mildly insane.

“Listen up, Laurence,” one of his fellow undergraduates shouted one evening, in the common room, and threw a cricket ball at him, “Perhaps you’d like to invite your dragon friends to join us, and take a diploma?

“Sure. Temeraire is better read than all of you taken together,” Will thought, without looking up from the box of North American fossils he had received in the post from one of Professor Owen’s correspondents, “Excidium could teach you all a lesson in military history. And Perscitia could head the school of mathematics without even trying very hard, if they let her.”

Crashing laughter broke out around him, and he suddenly realized that he had spoken the last words aloud. The student at the head of the group shook himself laughing.

“Hear, hear! Mr Laurence is as mad as his father – crazy about dragons. I bet he’d take them to bed, if only he could!”

Before Will could think, his hand had closed around a fossilized claw from his box and hurled it at the speaker. The young man went down with a scream, blood trickling between his fingers. His forehead had to be sown up with two stitches and Will got a dressing-down from the Dean, although afterward he was sorry only to have damaged a perfectly good specimen. He had earned his peace. However, returning to the dusty catacombs of the museum to place the chipped fossil amongst the collection, and facing the empty eye-sockets staring at him from the dragon skulls, he couldn’t help feeling downcast. His fellow students’ prejudice accurately reflected the whole university’s attitude to dragons: Living dragons, even the littlest couriers, were banned from within a mile of the city’s spires. It was an antiquated rule, a precaution against fire dating from the days before the last native feral fire-breathers had been hunted to extinction in the fourteenth century, but, as Will had quickly grasped, once a rule in Oxford, always a rule in Oxford.

He would dearly have liked to show Temeraire around, as he knew Temeraire would have shared his delight in the glorious libraries. Instead, when his father and Temeraire came to visit, they had to meet awkwardly at an inn outside the city’s precincts. Laurence, resentful at the treatment of his dragon, refused to accompany Will to dinner at his college. Will retorted that maybe he should make a speech in Parliament about that stupid rule, instead of taking it out on him. They parted with dark clouds between them. Will did take a detailed set of measurements of Temeraire’s jaws, neck, and pharynx for Professor Owen, though, braving his fear to climb into the dragon’s open mouth while his father looked on with a furrowed brow. Before Laurence left, he stiffly informed his younger son that Horatio had acquitted himself admirably during some recent skirmishes in Québéc, and come up near the top of the post-list despite his young age so that consequently, he intended to hand over Temeraire’s captaincy as soon as Iskierka returned to England.

Will nodded, hoping that his face betrayed none of his feelings. He had never entertained any serious hope of inheriting Temeraire, and knew Horatio to be better suited to the task in every way imaginable, but the thought of Temeraire returning to active service under his brother’s command was still a blow. It meant his most beloved dragon should be away from England for months, if not years on end, exposed to danger and battle, while all he could do was sit and wait for news. Something about Laurence’s gait as he walked back to Temeraire and climbed aboard, shoulders uncharacteristically hunched, told him his father shared this sentiment, but the quarrel was too fresh between them for any conciliatory words. Will raised his hand to wave as Temeraire went aloft, and watched as the dark shadow disappeared into the evening sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: The year is 1838. 23-year old William ‘Little Will’ Laurence has a frosty relationship with his father Admiral Laurence – war hero, retired aerial captain and now a lord of parliament – who disapproves of his chosen career as a naturalist and scholar. In contrast, Will’s twin brother Horatio has been trained as an aviator on Iskierka’s crew since the age of six and is living up to expectations by taking Temeraire back into the Corps._

A few months later, Little Will was comfortably pillowed in his bed with a cup of tea and a pile of new books, when there was a knock on the door and one of the college’s servants entered.

“There is a,” he coughed, “young lady come to see you.”

Will put down his spectacles, confused and a little annoyed at the intrusion on his quiet morning. He hadn’t invited any visitors, and liked to keep to himself if he could help it. He got up and looked around the room – a mess of papers, half-empty cups, quills, fossils and labelled dragon teeth. His clothing was in no better state. All his shirts had ink-marks and acid holes in them by now; he had no clean necktie left, his hat probably still on the peg in the library where he had forgotten it the previous night, and there was only one stocking to be located. He threw on his gown to cover his state of disarray – he sometimes thought the scholars of Oxford liked their gowns so very much because it didn‘t in the least matter what one wore underneath them – and followed the servant to the parlour by the dining hall.

Midwingman Isabella Dlamini sat on one of the cushioned chairs, in an unbecoming chequered frock grown too short at the wrists, and darkly returned the stares of former college masters and deans from the paintings on the walls. Will hadn’t seen her in months. She had been assigned to Temeraire when Horatio had made captain. As daughter to his half-sister Captain Emily Roland, Isabella was technically his niece, but since she was only seven years his junior, Will had always regarded her more in the light of a sister, and she only called him uncle when she wanted to annoy him. They had spent many summers together in the Peaks, during his school holidays. Much like Horatio, Isabella was an aviator through and through, having become a runner at the age of seven, an inclination her grandmother had fostered whole-heartedly since she was next in line for Excidium’s captaincy. She was a cocky sixteen now, with mahogany skin and a head of unruly locks, and Will could not remember the last time he had seen her wear a dress.

She sprung up as soon as the door opened. He grinned, quickening his steps to greet her, but abruptly checked himself when he saw the look on her face.

“Hello, Izzy,” he said, and then stood awkwardly. No smile, no silliness, no ‘Uncle Will’. Something was wrong.

“Grandfather sends me. You must come at once,” Isabella said, walking past him even as she spoke. “Let’s go.”

“But I can’t!” Will protested, “I’m about to read my first paper, on the prehistory of dragons in England. If I don’t show up this evening, all the work will have been-“

“Oh, to hell with your paper,” Isabella snapped, “Your brother has gotten himself injured badly. The surgeons think he might not last the day. Temeraire has brought him home.”

Will stared at her, a cold fist gripping hold of his bowels as the full meaning of her words sunk in. But Isabella had already pulled him out of the door into the quadrangle, and through the college gates onto High Street, with a curse. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, why can’t one land a dragon in this silly city? Come on, hurry up.”

He stumbled after her as she made her way through the crowds on the sidewalks, running towards the river and the edge of the town. They were an odd pair indeed – a tall dark-skinned girl who ran with her eyes fixed to the sky, not shy to elbow her way forward whenever the need arose, and a pale young scholar at her heels making breathless apologies to her wake of offended passers-by. They finally reached South Park, where the dragon ban ended, and Isabella waved both her arms over her head. A small Winchester reared his head on the other side of the green and hurried across to them in a series of hops and wing-flaps. Her captain was a friendly-faced young man in the uniform of a courier-captain who introduced himself as James Hollin, and his beast as Elsie. Captain Hollin launched into an explanation of how to strap onto the harness, then interrupted himself and raised a brow in surprise when he saw the student had already half-finished the task.

“Thank you,” Will said, “I… I do know how to do it.” He tried very hard not to think beyond the immediate task at hand, yet his hands trembled as he clicked on the carabiners.

Isabella was taciturn for all the short flight, and Will was glad for it. He fixed his mind on the countryside speeding past below them, the spires of Oxford disappearing in the haze, the black fumes of the chimneys of Birminham and Leeds on the horizon, and before them, like a green oasis from some more innocent time, the Peaks.

Izzy jumped down to the ground before they had even landed and then stood impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other, while Will took a while longer – his gown had become tangled on one of the harness-rings. He took it off. Among the heather-clad hills with their herds of shaggy cows and sheep, it suddenly seemed as out of place as a ballgown. Here, Professor Owen’s star student did not exist – just Little Will Laurence, runt of the litter, good-for-nothing.

“Mr Laurence, if you have a moment…” Captain Hollin opened one of his mail bags and pulled out a strange letter, a roll of paper sealed with red wax and an elaborate knot, labelled in Mandarin. “Pray do you know who this might be addressed to? I was given it at Dover.”

Will nodded. “That is Temeraire’s name there,” pointing to the characters, Lung Tien Xiang.

Hollin nodded, relieved. “I thought it might be, but… well… Will you convey it to Temeraire, for me?”

Will accepted the letter. Elsie nosed at the dangling red knot. “That is very pretty,” she piped. Will tore the seal off and handed it to her. Temeraire wouldn’t mind. “Oh, Hollin, look!” Elsie triumphed, hanging it over her ear, “How lovely!”

Captain Hollin rubbed her neck affectionately as he went back aboard, murmuring something about a “veritable Christmas tree,” and saluted Will and Isabella before they dashed off again.

When they knocked at the front door, Temeraire came bounding from the backyard. “He is not dead!” he shouted to Isabella, “He has woken up!”

Will felt a wave of relief flooding over him, not just out of concern for his brother, as he quietly admitted to himself as he hurried up the stairs behind Isabella, who was taking three steps at once.

When they burst into the bedroom, Horatio was indeed alive. He was pale as a sheet from all the blood he had lost, and his chest and sword-arm were swathed in bandages, but that didn’t stop him from being engaged in a shouting match with his mother.

“How could you be so damned foolish?” Jane scowled, “You know that duelling is strictly forbidden in the Corps! And _Lieutenant Stuart Rankin_ of all people… the fellow ain’t worth your spit!”

“He said… the sword was blunted!” Horatio protested, trying to push himself up on his elbows and sinking back grimacing in pain, “How was I to know he was lying? … I couldn’t not answer his challenge! … He comes here from his rum-sodden colony … having never done an ounce of good to anyone …. and goes about saying the foulest things about father … and Temeraire … things I should not care to repeat-”

“He is only a Lieutenant, and you are Captain, so you should have known better! The damned wretch now claims it was you who provoked him, and since nobody saw you, it is word against word. Hasn’t it occurred to you that he was deliberately trying to compromise you, on your first post? This whole affair will certainly get you demoted, and we shall count ourselves lucky if I can talk them out of a court-martial, as you are due by the rule-book, when all you should have done was keep your countenance and walk away? I have never been a friend of handing posts down families without thought, but I would never have imagined _you_ to disappoint me so.”

“Jane,” Laurence interrupted, without turning around from where he was sitting by Horatio’s side, next to Mr Tharkay who was watching with an unreadable face, “Is this really the moment-”

“I don’t see why he should be demoted,” Temeraire put in, through the half-open window, “He is my captain after all, and I am still perfectly happy to have him. Laurence was in a duel once, and…”

“Oh, do keep your mouth shut, before I ask why you didn’t take better care of him,” Jane snapped, turning around as both the twins stared at Temeraire – this story was new to them - and caught sight of Will and Isabella by the door. She heaved a sigh. “Hello, Will. Damned sorry to have called you away from your books, when it looks like we haven’t got a funeral on our hands after all.”

Will hurried to his brother’s side and took his hand, stormily enough to make him wince. “Horatio," he said, a little choked, “I… I was so worried…”

Horatio opened his eyes and grinned at him, weakly. “Hello, little one… You thought… I’d snuff it… and saddle you with a dragon?”

Will could have smacked his brother and hugged him at the same time, but Horatio didn’t look like he could take either at present, so he simply gave his cold callused hand a squeeze, and smiled.

Horatio’s surgeon, Mr Blythe, entered with a bowl of steaming water and a bundle of fresh dressings, and ordered the crowd out of the room with a frown, saying he had to get the wounds stitched up properly. Jane stayed, insisting she wanted to see exactly how Rankin had tried to butcher her son, as ammunition for the letters she intended to write, and ignored Horatio's protests. Isabella dashed away to get changed.

Tharkay took Will aside in the corridor. "So this is what it takes to get you home, to see your old godfather?" he asked, with a wry smile, "Murder and bloodshed? I daresay it will be difficult to orchestrate, but now that I know..." and invited him to a game of chess later on, in the library.

Then Tharkay had to see to a group of his tenants who had come to the west wing with an urgent call, and Will was left awkwardly facing his father, not knowing what to say. There seemed to be a stretch of thin ice between them from their last confrontation, and neither of them would hazard stepping on it. He remembered the letter Captain Hollin had handed him and pulled it out. “I was given this, for Temeraire.”

Laurence nodded, but did not move to accept it. “Read it to him.” He ran a hand over his forehead, and his face, utterly composed when facing Horatio earlier, suddenly looked tired and etched with worry. “He will be very happy to see you again… I expect you will not be staying long.”

“I… well… I haven’t got leave.” Will shuddered to think of the number of rules he had already broken, coming here without giving notice, and missing the reading of his paper. His scholarship was certainly in jeopardy.

“Temeraire can take you back tomorrow, if you like… to the edge of the town, that is,” Laurence said, “I can write to your college’s master to explain the circumstances, if you like.”

Will shook his head. “No need for a letter, I’ll work it out.” He’d rather sweep the college chimneys for wages than ask his father for money or assistance.   
  


\--  
  


When Little Will walked out to the pavilion, Temeraire lay on the heated flagstones looking through his collection of treasure, as he often did when he was upset. He kept the chest with his talon-sheaths and his platinum breastplate locked in a safe in the pavilion wall that could be opened with one of his claws. It also held his collection of Chinese porcelain and a few other things that nobody else thought particularly valuable, but to which he was deeply attached: Laurence’s old bars of an Admiral of the Air, the dog-eared first book he and Little Will had read together, a Spanish silver coin Horatio had brought him from one of his journeys, and a pencil study of the twins in stiff Chinese silks, drafted for a painting Temeraire had commissioned on the occasion of their first birthday to send to his mother in China. Will hated this embarrassing picture as much as Temeraire treasured it.

Temeraire greeted him with an affectionate nudge that nearly knocked Will off his feet. “Have you brought me a book?”

Will stroked the soft muzzle and briefly permitted himself the license of leaning his forehead against Temeraire’s sleek neck, as he had done as a young boy, listening to the comforting swell of the dragon’s breaths, but then withdrew quickly, crossing his arms behind his back. This was not his family’s dragon anymore; this was Temeraire of Her Majesty’s Aerial Corps.

“No, I’m very sorry,” he said, “I didn’t have time to find you a nice one. But Captain Hollin gave me a letter for you.”

He pulled out the scroll and held it up. Temeraire nosed it. “Oh, dear Hollin… how does he, and his father, and Elsie? Did you know, old Hollin was part of my ground-crew once, before Elsie’s hatching?”

“No, I didn’t know, although that would explain why they were so very kind to us today.”

Temeraire nodded, a little wistfully, and beckoned Little Will to take a seat on the marble bench by his pavilion. “Oh, yes, the old days… but I won’t bore you. Pray will you read me my letter? The characters are so small, I can’t very well make them out.”

“With pleasure,” Will said, putting on his glasses and unrolling the scroll. He cleared his throat, and started reading in Chinese. Temeraire’s ruff came up sharply before he had even finished the first line, and Will felt his hands trembling, clutching the fine paper, but he carried on to the end. Then he looked up and into Temeraire’s eyes, wide with alarm, and his heart bled to think that he should have brought him so utterly disquieting a piece of news, when Temeraire was already worried sick over Horatio. Quite forgetting himself, he reached out to Temeraire and hugged his neck with both arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Shall I fetch father?”

\--

“So Ning has thrown her lot in with the East India Company, and is doing her utmost to provoke the Chinese," Laurence said, slowly, when Temeraire had turned over Ning’s letter and summarized the contents of the calligraphy contained therein.

_… They always only kept me as second-best, and said I was not a proper Celestial. As soon as Lung Tien Liming hatched, they forced my Emperor to throw me out, even though he did not like to. I will teach them to respect me yet! They’ll bow to me and take me back. I’m just letting you know, in case your Laurence and your government would like to support me, which they should._

Temeraire tossed his head into the air, shaking himself as if to dislodge a stain on his hide. He hated giving so much grief to Laurence – first returning Horatio half-dead, and now, this outrageous letter from Ning. “I am so very sorry, Laurence. Even if they should have been rude to her at court, I cannot understand how she would do something like this! It is quite unbearable. I must go to Guangzhou at once, and find her, and bring her to her senses.”

Laurence shook his head. “I must caution you to be patient, my dear,” he said, “You cannot be rushing off without orders or crew, especially after what happened to Horatio – it’ll destroy any hopes of reinstatement, if you make a show of disobedience.” He sighed. “I will send a courier to the admiralty and apply for you to be given leave from the service, so we may go to China.”

“We?” Temeraire asked, his head coming up eagerly for a short moment, before he bent down low to peer at his first captain with anxiety. “But Laurence, are you sure? You weren’t well at all last winter.”

At sixty-three, Laurence was by no means frail, even though his breath had grown shorter and his hair had gone a respectable shade of grey, but today, for the first time and with great alarm, Temeraire found that he looked careworn and old.

“Nothing but a cold. And anyways, Horatio is in no shape to accompany you.”

“But what of Little Will?”

Laurence did not reply to this.

Temeraire scraped the floor of his pavilion, an awful grating sound of talons on marble. “But Laurence, you cannot go,” he said unhappily, “I have been so very glad for you being in the Lords, now that I cannot be in parliament any more. You have worked so hard on that bill against children and dragons being kept in factories and collieries, but if you leave, it must look like we are running away, and I am sure that awful Lord Thomson is going to tear it all down again.”

“I am sure Sir Astley will see it through,” Laurence said, although Temeraire knew this optimism almost wholly unfounded. Their political allies had their attention set on the rights of the human factory workers, which, while necessary and admirable, did not go nearly far enough in Temeraire's opinion. Shortly before he had rejoined the Corps, he and Laurence had seen a group of stunted skeletal Reapers shackled in a foundry near Manchester, dragging heavy carts of coal for sixteen hours a day, and Laurence had promised him to press for the inclusion of dragons in the set of reform bills being debated.

He curled himself up around the letter, crestfallen. “But Laurence, do you really think they will take Horatio away from me? Surely if I told them what happened… That despicable Rankin fellow went around saying such awful things about you, I should have liked to swat him… but Horatio insisted he deal with it… he said he was going to _speak_ to Lieutenant Rankin, not get himself stabbed! Looking at it now, I should never have let him go, he looked so very angry when he left…”

“It’s done now and we can’t change it,” Laurence said, “Jane will write to a few people at the admiralty, and I’m sure Granby will put in a good word for him, if he hears of it. But I can’t hold out too much hope. Rankin’s family is influential amongst the old names of the Corps. Even if they don’t erase him from the list, I expect he’ll remain grounded awhile. In any case, we must pray for his recovery – Blythe would not give me a good prognosis yet, when he might still catch a fever.”

Temeraire sat up on his haunches. “If they take Horatio away from me, especially for so nonsensical a reason, I will leave the Corps,” he said, violently, “I shall be perfectly happy to go back to being in parliament with you, and anyways, I should not like to fight my own family, if there is to be a war with China.”

To which Laurence bent his head low, and said nothing.

\--

Will thought Horatio was asleep, but when the floorboards creaked under his feet, his brother stirred. “Little Will?” he asked, turning his head.

“Yes.” Will took a candle from the corridor wall, took it to his brother’s bed and sat down beside him. “Hello, Tsio. How are you?”

“Could be better," Horatio croaked, “How is Temeraire?”

“Worried… about you.” And about something else, he thought, but could not bear to say it aloud, and fill his brother’s head with more worries. They sat silently for a while. Horatio’s eyes were closed, and Will already thought he had gone back to sleep, when suddenly, Horatio jerked his chin in the direction of his flying-coat on a peg on the wall.

“Take it,” he said.

Will stared at him. "No! It’s yours.”

Horatio let out a joyless laugh. “I’d rather give it to you now, myself, than have it taken away from me and thrust on some fellow from a post-list by those dim-wits at the admiralty with their _fucking_ rules…” His voice broke off, choked. “It… pains,” he said, between gritted teeth, his unscathed hand pressed to his chest, but Will felt certain his brother was not talking about his wounds.

He took Horatio’s hand and held it tight. “Don’t give up hope. Nothing has been decided yet. That Rankin fellow sounds like an awful creature, but our family isn’t without influence, either… mother will huff and fume about it now, but you know she’ll do everything in her power to preserve your post. And in any case, Temeraire wouldn’t have any other.”

Horatio snorted. “Nonsense. Temeraire will have you.”

“What?” Will blinked, confused.

Horatio snorted. “You never noticed? I don’t think there is anyone in the world whom he regards as highly as you, apart from father of course.” There was a faint note of resentment in his voice, as he mimicked Temeraire. “ _If only Little Will could see this… I’m sure Little Will would know what to do… Have you seen the books Little Will has sent me? … I wish you could speak Mandarin, Horatio, Little Will can…_ ”

“Even if he has said things like this, you know full well it was only because he saw so very little of me,” Will interrupted, mortified, “Otherwise he would have realized immediately that there’s nothing to me, that I would have failed him utterly, while you are such a brilliant aviator.”

Horatio did not make any direct reply, but gestured to his coat again. “Take it,” he repeated, “Throw it in the sea if you like, but just take it away. I can’t bear to look at it.”

Will rose, reluctantly, and took the bottle-green coat from its peg. It was surprisingly heavy, the candlelight catching in the golden bars. He felt certain that it wouldn’t fit him, his brother being broader in the shoulders than he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to try it on before Horatio’s eyes, and rub salt into open wounds. He hung it over his arm. “I’ll look after it for you, until you are better," he promised. “But Horatio, I wanted to ask … will you let me take Temeraire to China?”

“To fetch some more of your dratted books?” Horatio mumbled, exhausted, his eyes closing again. “Go ahead, the admiralty will love it I’m sure, it’ll make me look less of a disaster… But I don’t see why you are seeking my permission for what to do with your dragon.”

\--

Tharkay did his best to distract Laurence with a game of cards, and Laurence suspected he had deliberately been dealt an excellent hand, but he was losing nonetheless, his mind catching on one gloomy thought after another.

Tharkay put down his cards with a sigh. “Piece of your mind? … Horatio doesn’t seem to be dying imminently, so I don’t see why you are so despondent.”

Laurence hesitated for a moment, then reached inside his waistcoat to pull out Ning’s letter, silently handing it to Tharkay. His friend’s eyes darted over the columns, and he let out a dry laugh when he had finished. “Ha! A capital prize for the East India Company. It’ll embolden them to press on with their opium peddling, having a dragon like Ning to guard them, when the Chinese have made every effort to stop it being smuggled into their country and poisoning their men and dragons… it’s a wretched business. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, five years ago coming through Canton – they still circumvent the ban on the trade by having the merchant ships anchor in open sea, or in hidden bays, where the junks cannot reach them, until a dragon squadron is sent in to chase them off, but they will always come back, like flies.”

Laurence nodded grimly. He hadn’t accompanied Tharkay on that particular journey, but a bill had recently been debated in parliament to curtail the flourishing trade in opium. It had been resoundingly defeated. Too many members of both houses held shares in the trade. “We must coax Ning back… though how we are to do it, if she is used to the luxuries of the Chinese court or the bribes of the East India Company, is beyond me. I don’t suppose a valley in England will hold any charm to her, and neither will our Corps. If only the Chinese could be prevailed upon to accept her back… although that is most likely out of the question. And she is Iskierka’s issue, after all.” He sighed.

“It would be better if Iskierka doesn’t hear of this,” Tharkay said. “Diplomacy has never been her forte. And to that end, it would be very useful if you stayed here and did not make a stir.” He lifted a hand when Laurence would have protested. “Not to sound rude, Will, but both of us are well beyond our prime. If it came to it, you would more usefully serve England’s interests in parliament, to remind them of the strength of the Chinese legions and tell them to keep a level head, than climbing about aloft.”

“Who else is to go to China, then?” Laurence demanded, his voice not so much angry as weary.

Tharkay shrugged his shoulders. “You have two sons.”

Laurence threw his cards on the table. “Little Will? Tenzing, you cannot be serious. I would be sending the boy to his certain doom. God knows I’ve tried to interest him in any real work, but he quite resisted… I wasn’t raised to the Corps, either, but at least I could read a map, and had handled a pistol before, when Temeraire hatched. Will knows nothing – he is a dreamer!”

Tharkay inclined his head. “Neither of you would like to hear it, but he is the spitting image of you, and this intelligence from China seems to have affected him badly. He deserves his chance.”

There was a knock on the door, and Jane stuck her head in. “Pardon me, but have you any notion where Will might be, or Isabella?” she asked, disconcerted.

“No, have they not gone to sleep?” Laurence said, and rose sharply when he saw the look on Tharkay’s face.

“The spitting image,” Tharkay said.

“Well,” Laurence said, trying to keep his voice unconcerned, “They’re probably with Temeraire. I’ll go and have a look.”

He was almost running by the time he reached the pavilion, an old nightmare creeping back to his mind, and his heart skipped a beat when he found it echoing empty.

\--

“Now that was a prodigiously stupid idea," Isabella said, staring from the cliffs near Margate.

“If it was, why did you come with me then?” Will asked, irritated. The continent lay slumbering somewhere in the morning mists ahead, and still further, somewhere, China, although how he was to get there was a puzzle he still had to work out. It wasn’t yet six in the morning, he was hungry and tired, and thinking about how many miles already separated this windswept cliff from his cosy bed with his books, he would have liked to turn around.

“To keep an eye on you,” she snorted. “Do you think I trust you with your brother’s dragon - you, who has never even flown alone, who can’t shoot or fence, who has never seen a flag-signal, and just generally _knows nothing_?”

Will shrugged his shoulders. “Ask me something.”

Isabella paced the cliffs. “Flying weight of a Chequered Nettle?”

“Twenty-eight tons.”

“Best formation for flying in a stiff wind?”

“Echelon, supposedly, although-“

“Top speed of a Defendeur-brave?’

“Sixteen knots. They’re slow.”

“How would you harness a Bengal Nakhara?”

“I certainly wouldn’t. They haven’t gone into harness since the fifteenth century. Emperor Babur harnessed one, on his conquest, and he served as companion to his successors until Shah Jahan, who was heartbroken when he died. He is buried in the Taj Mahal.”

Isabella turned around, arms crossed. “You really have read all the books, have you?”

“Izzy, I may not be a Corps man, but I am not stupid. And anyways, I didn’t solicit your help, so if you are dissatisfied, you may leave.” This was not entirely truthful, he had to admit – he had asked her help with putting on Temeraire’s heavy harness, although afterwards, she had flatly refused to let him go alone.

She flared at him like an annoyed cat. “Of course you are stupid! This isn‘t just about you! Temeraire has a crew, there are people‘s livelihoods depending on him and all their hopes of advancement. He isn‘t yours to just take away on a whim!”

“Will, look!” Temeraire cried out this moment, from a little distance away, staring at something in the sea below, “It is the _Temeraire_! But what are they doing to her - has she been attacked? Her masts are all gone!”

Will hurried to his side, Isabella following close behind. Indeed, there was a ship – or rather, a lumbering hull tethered to a towing-boat in the sandy mouth of the river.

Isabella climbed aboard Temeraire and took the looking-glass from its pouch. “No, it’s alright,” she said, peering down, “She’s being taken to Southwark, to be broken up for scrap. I‘ve read something about it in the gazette”, she said, clambering down to hand the glass to Will. Once he had worked out how to focus it, he could read the faded letters on her peeling hull. _HMS_ _TÉMÉRAIRE_. It was barely believable that this should be the ship that had brought a sparkle to his father’s eyes every time he had spoken of it – looking at her now in the muddy surf of the estuary, stripped of masts and rigging, she looked uncannily like a beached whale.

A resentful shiver ran through Temeraire’s body. “For scrap?” he exclaimed, indignantly, “How can they, after all she’s done? She was one of Laurence's favourite ships.”

“Well, there aren’t any breeding grounds for boats,” Isabella muttered.

Will raised his hand to stroke Temeraire’s trembling neck. “Pray do not worry yourself-“

But he was too late. “I will let her have a decent burial, at least!” Temeraire hissed and jumped off the cliff, his wings fanning out majestically.

“Temeraire, no!” Isabella yelled, as she and Will rushed to the edge of the cliff, but Temeraire paid no attention. Will could only stare, in mingled terror and awe, as Temeraire drew himself up and all but stood in the air, sweeping his wings almost horizontally, his sides swelling as he drew in a deep breath.

“Fascinating,” he murmured, “I wonder how he does it…”

The crew of the steamer had caught sight of Temeraire now, and the wind carried shreds of panic-stricken commands as they started to hack at the ropes tethering them to the doomed ship.

The next moment, Temeraire roared out his funerary salute.

The hull of the _Temeraire_ cracked and burst, the heavy oaken beams groaning and splintering. Her gallery windows shattered, and a huge wave rushed towards the cliffs. Will stood transfixed, a faint whistling note in his ear. Next to the wreckage of the _Temeraire_ , the steamer bobbed partly submerged, with a heavy list. Then the wave crashed into the chalky cliff with all its force. Isabella was shouting at him and tugging at his arm, but Will's deafened ears could not make out the words. A final determined pull sent him backwards, stumbling into the gorse – only a moment before a fault-line opened in the ground and the edge of the cliff where he had been standing broke off clean, thundering into the depths beneath.

He stared at the piece of sky where the cliff had been a moment ago, dazed, and from the corner of his eye registered an alarm-flare going up from the nearest coastal beacon. Temeraire landed next to him, mantling his wings protectively. “Are you alright, Will?”

He nodded, the wooliness gradually lifting from his ears, and pulled himself together. When he stepped out of the shadow of Temeraire’s wing, Isabella thrust the looking-glass at him and pointed at the sky. A dragon formation of the coastal guard was beating towards them, the lead dragon flashing them a signal he didn’t understand. He glanced sideways at Isabella, who was lifting her empty hands over her head.

“Brilliant,” she said, bitingly. “Now you’ve gotten us into the soup.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Recapping: Little Will is summoned back home to pay last respects to his brother who has gotten himself stabbed in a (forbidden) duel. His niece Isabella Dlamini, Emily Roland’s daughter, collects him. Temeraire receives a letter from his daughter Ning asking his support against her enemies at the Chinese court. Ning claims she has been dumped in favour of a newly-hatched Celestial and has decided to team up with the East India Company to teach the Chinese a lesson. Horatio defies predictions by not dying, but having ruined his career prospects asks Will to take charge of Temeraire before the dragon gets given to an outsider. Will is appalled. However, seeing Temeraire upset about Ning’s letter, especially because Laurence is not free to travel to China with him, he promises to accompany Temeraire instead. Isabella insists on coming, too. Their adventure seems at an end at the coast where Temeraire meets the HMS_ Temeraire _on the way to the shipbreakers’ yard._

“Next!” Admiral Granby, commander of the fortress and covert at Dover, called, and a nervous young lieutenant entered the pavilion, picking his way over the sprawling curls of Iskierka’s tail.

He gave his name and current post, which Granby discreetly checked against the list of recommendations in his lap. Iskierka lay flattened to the floor in a display of utter disinterest and didn’t even prick up an ear when Granby interrogated the man on his experience, posts so far, and knowledge of dragon flying. “I also like gold and jewels, as I have heard you do,” the young man said, finally, “So I have permitted myself the liberty of finding a gift for you.”

He held up a golden chain.

Granby stared at it, surprised and bewildered. What he had heard so far had been encouraging, but he could only disapprove of this sort of bribery. Iskierka roused her head for a short moment, but gave only a cursory glance. “Pooh!” she said, “That is very small and cheap. I have much nicer jewels. You may keep it, and you may go away.”

The next candidate didn’t fare any better. “Can you sing?” Iskierka interrupted Granby’s questioning.

The young aviator went pale, and then nodded hastily, launching into a rendition of what was barely recognizable as ‘God save the Queen’.

“Thank you, Sir,” Granby interrupted on the high notes, finding it hard to bear. He turned to Iskierka when the poor fellow had left. “What was that about?" he asked, reproachfully, "I cannot sing either, how has it become so important a criterion now?”

Iskierka jetted a puff of steam. “Well, none of them are as good as you, naturally, so they ought to at least be able to sing, if I am to consider them. And be rich, of course… Anyways, I still don’t see why we couldn’t keep Horatio Laurence. He was _ours_!” This with great indignation, “He is your godson, and I took care of him all those years, from when he was a tiny runner. I have every right to him, where Temeraire has none, sitting around in his silly parliament.”

Granby sighed. To say Iskierka had _taken care_ of his ward was an exaggeration, when she had at multiple times almost singed his hair off, dropped him from mid-air, or forgotten him along with half the rest of her crew on a beach when she was in a blood-rage to pounce on a prize. Yet he could not deny he had allowed a bond to form between the two of them, looking on with a half-happy, half-guilty heart, hoping and at the same time denying himself all hope that this rowdy boy might be the answer to his sleepless nights’ prayers. Perhaps he had been too swayed by his own emotions, Horatio being the closest thing he had to a son of his own. He now realized it had been a grave mistake. Granby had lately celebrated his thirty years’ jubilee as a captain, his bones ached after even a short days’ flying, and the management of the busy Dover covert, letters and dispatches piling on his desk, was growing more taxing by the day. He was dearly looking forward to retirement, but Iskierka wouldn’t hear of it.

Perhaps he ought to have appealed more strongly to his family, for one of his nephews, humiliating as it would have been to beg. But the new flourishing of steam boats and ships had earned his eldest brother a small fortune in coal-trading, and allowed _Granby & Sons_ to open branches outside their native Newcastle, so his three sons had chosen to go into that more settled line of business. His other brother’s son had looked a likely prospect, since he had been quite unwilling to follow his own father into the church, but he had died of smallpox when he came of an age to join the Corps. Even if he had lived, Granby was not at all sure if Iskierka could have been prevailed upon to see reason, besotted as she was with Horatio, the one crew member most decidedly out of her reach.

“Captain Laurence earned his bars, and inherited his father’s dragon,” he said to his dragon, calmly, “There was nothing irregular about it, and everyone was very glad to see Temeraire back in the Corps.”

“But that doesn’t mean it was fair,” Iskierka hissed, “Why do they all need to leave, when I have them trained properly? Harcourt didn’t stay, either.”

He stroked her seething neck. “Well, my dear, we always knew she was for Longwing service.”

Alice Harcourt, one of his more talented former midwingmen, was in line for Lily once her mother retired, and had therefore gone to Excidium to be trained in Longwing service after she had passed her lieutenant’s examination, some three years ago. Iskierka had been most unhappy, but Granby had been secretly relieved to see her go, as the girl had grown rather too fond of Lieutenant Laurence with his handsome face and golden hair. Granby had despaired over the inadequacy of his advice, despite the seemingly one-way nature of the attraction, Horatio being far too busy perfecting his fencing and shooting or roaming around the harbour taverns to notice a heartsick girl. Surely Captain Emily Roland would set her straight and tell her all a woman in the Corps needed to know, as her own mother would have done, if she hadn’t been stationed in Bombay these last five years. After the disaster of her marriage and the end of the war, Catherine Harcourt had gone back to the tried and tested Corps ways, and not very long afterwards given birth to her longed-for daughter. Granby didn’t know the name of Alice’s father, Catherine had never mentioned, and he had never thought to ask. Maybe she was Warren's, or Chenery's – their eye colours matched suspiciously – or somebody else’s entirely. She wasn‘t his, that was for sure, and Granby suspected that was the reason she had been assigned to his crew, to preclude any awkwardness. No, commitment or marriage weren’t their lot, the life didn’t allow it. He sometimes wondered at his old friend Laurence, who seemed to have made a tolerable success of the thing, although of course Laurence had been raised outside the Corps which made for some odd notions to say the least. Besides, Temeraire had let him retire, and he and Roland were too busy to be in each other’s way much, he with his parliamentary struggles and she a well-respected figure in the Corps even now, often applied to for advice.

Roland had written him the list of promising officers to approach, who might be a fit for Iskierka. She still knew most post-lists inside out. When she had handed him the names, he had made one last attempt, and quipped: “You know who she’s got her heart set on… or rather, her claws.”

She had nodded. “I know, although we should count ourselves lucky it isn’t possible, as he is for Temeraire. Horatio has all his father’s fervour and none of his discipline, which I will call the perfect recipe for disaster, matched against Iskierka” an astute judgement, shattering his hopes.

“You know I cannot be with you forever, my dear,” he now said to Iskierka, who was sulkily snapping at a seagull who had dared come too close to the pavilion, “You will live to see the next century, easily, and I twenty or thirty years at most, and half those as a deaf arthritic. But there are many talented young aviators longing for the chance to be your companion.”

“I don’t want any of them. They bore me,” Iskierka said and closed the issue by blowing a short gust of flame onto the list of eligible officers. Granby dropped it hastily. “I don’t want to meet any more of them. Pray can we go and find some smugglers?”

“I’m sorry to say all is looking rather calm at sea today,” Granby said, looking at the ashes frustrated, “Shall we go for a circuit, nevertheless? Just the two of us?”

Iskierka nodded and got up from the floor, brightening already.

The salty sea-air on his face and the glint of the channel underneath them could do little to raise Granby's spirits. The gnawing question of finding a successor pushed aside for now, his thoughts stubbornly circled back to where he did not want them to go.

Captain Little had written to him.

Little had already looked pale and hollow-cheeked when Granby had returned from Canada, over a year ago now, but at that time, Granby had blamed it on the perpetual rain in Scotland where Little had been flying patrols. He had kissed and laughed it away in the joy of their reunion and suggested Little apply for a change in post, Cyprus perhaps. Yet when they had met again, at an entertainment in London Laurence had given on the occasion of Temeraire’s rejoining the Corps, Little had looked even thinner, and all but avoided him, finally disappearing from the party without leaving an address. Granby had been stumped and annoyed. Walking away brooding, he had caught Little bent over coughing in the yard, leaning against Immortalis’ side, the dragon nosing his captain anxiously. Granby had called out his name, and when Little had turned, his hands and mouth had been slick with blood. He had hastily wiped it away, without a care for the ruin he was making of his dress shirt, and put on a smile, but before Granby could stop him, he had climbed aboard, and spurred Immortalis to be away.

Granby had not slept a quiet night, thereafter. He now understood what Little was running away from, but that Little also chose to run away from _him_ hurt beyond what Granby would have thought imaginable. He had suffered a further blow when he had heard, second-hand, that Little had resigned from the service, after Immortalis had accepted one of his nephews for captain, and still, no note had arrived, nothing to disclose his condition or whereabouts – until the letter had come, a week ago.

It was written in deliberately cheerful tones, Little’s elegant hand only a little shaky. He had not spilled any ink on his health, but instead described in glowing detail the house he had bought with his prize-money, in the pleasant Somerset climate. It finished -

_The fly-fishing is excellent, too, and the lake very secluded, with no paths leading to it. You have to cross a treacherous swamp to reach it. I hope you forgive my sentimental thoughts, but I often imagine walking it with you, just the once, and spending a day by that lake. I think I would die very happily, thereafter._

He had almost burnt the letter after reading it. There was the address, he held it in his hand tantalisingly, the unwritten plea between the lines, and yet he was unable to go. For years, there had been the tacit understanding between them that after their retirement, Little would look after him, one-handed cripple he was, and it pained Granby to think that he could not now do the same for Little, in his need. He did not care tuppence about any scandal it should have caused. But he could not leave Iskierka. Taking her along was out of the question – already wary over the loss of multiple officers, she would not take kindly to the idea of sharing his attention, and the last thing he wanted was a confrontation between the dragon he loved, and the man he loved equally. Yet the thought of another person, some uncaring footman or butler, looking after Augustine, washing him, helping him dress, setting his meals before him, all the while seeing only a sick and fading man, without recognition of the wonder that he was, filled him with anger and jealousy. He longed to ride up to that Somerset valley, throw whoever else was with Little out of the house, take his hand and tell him that he was there now, and there to stay, by that deep, quiet lake.

But his luck being what it was, he now had another problem on his hands.

“Why, that is Temeraire!” Iskierka shouted, wheeling around mid-air.

Granby reached for his looking-glass. From what he knew, Temeraire ought to be training with his new captain and formation in Scotland, not roaming around the southern coast. But the Celestial's sleek silhouette was unmistakable. Through his glass, Granby could make out three other beasts escorting him, hemming him in rather more closely than formation-flying required. The lead dragon gave a signal, _Permission to land_. Granby, still puzzled, called to Iskierka to return to the covert, and, after a little searching – his ensigns usually took care of this – flew one of Iskierka’s signals, _Act at your discretion_.

“It seems that one of our Corps dragons has been seized by a civilian, Admiral, and caused grave damages to one of the Navy’s decommissioned craft,” young Captain Dayes told him, walking over hurriedly after they had landed, his face confused even as he said it. Old Dayes had never secured a beast, and gone to the breeding-grounds embittered, but to his late triumph, his son had succeeded. “All but sunk it, to speak the truth. Our commander at Colchester was not at all sure what to do with him, so he bade us take him to you as his senior officer, to decide.”

“Nonsense,” Granby snorted, “A dragon cannot be seized against his will, unless someone should have taken his captain prisoner – where is Captain Laurence?”

“Dead, I presume. The man we took wouldn’t speak to us at all, but I heard a rumour-“

“I don’t want rumours,” Granby interrupted, sternly, hoping Iskierka hadn’t overheard, “Show me this civilian.”

Captain Dayes waved at his crew, and they brought forward an abashed-looking prisoner. Temeraire anxiously craned his neck, but the other two dragons wouldn’t let him step closer. Granby looked him over, confused, a faint recognition dawning. “What is your name?”

The young man stared at his feet. He was barely more than a boy, dressed sloppily in trousers and a shirt, without tie, jacket or waistcoat, and his hands, soft as a girl’s, were scratched as if he had recently taken a tumble into a thorn bush. “William Laurence, Sir.”

Of course, Granby thought. The usual suspects. He had last seen Horatio’s brother when the boy had been about nine years old, and even at that time the twins had been like chalk and cheese, but the family resemblance was plain enough at second glance. Before he was able to ask another question, Iskierka had snaked her head around him from behind, and brought her threatening face right up to young Mr Laurence's.

“Where is Horatio?” she demanded.

He pressed his lips together and did not reply.

“Pray leave him alone, Iskierka,” Granby said, “Captain Dayes, I thank you for your trouble. You and your formation may go.”

“But… but what is to be done about that man’s trickery on the dragon?” Dayes stammered, “Surely there must be some form of punishment?”

“I said, you may go,” Granby repeated flatly, and Dayes hastily made his leg and turned away. Granby watched him with narrowed eyes as he walked back to his beast, Cirrus, a cross between a Fleur-de-Nuit and a Reaper that had come out disappointingly small and short-sighted, although his tolerable night-vision sentenced him to a life of shore patrols. Granby didn’t like him much, and neither did he like young Dayes. He was too clean-shaven, too obliging, too obsequious. If he was perfectly honest, he didn’t feel inclined to like anyone or anything very much, that day.

“Thank you, Admiral Granby,” young Mr Laurence said, and Granby turned to stare at him.

“There is nothing to thank me for,” he snapped, “Come inside, where we may speak in private, but I must warn you to talk plain truth, as my nerves have already been sorely tested today.”

“Granby,” Temeraire put in, “Pray don’t be angry with Will. I asked him to come. Isabella can confirm it. We have something very important to do, and he agreed to come with me to China, as Horatio is hurt.”

Granby only noticed the girl now, tall and dark in the shadow of Temeraire’s wing. “Well, he can tell me all about it now, and that something had better be a good reason for all this mayhem,” he said, still tight-lipped, trying his best not to let any hint of personal concern slip into his voice. “Midwingman Dlamini, would you care to accompany us?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: At Dover, Admiral Granby is officially Not Having A Good Time. Finding a successor seems impossible when Iskierka will only consider candidates she cannot have, first and foremost her ex-first lieutenant Horatio Laurence, now captain of Temeraire. Without someone to replace him as Iskierka’s captain, Granby cannot retire to look after Captain Little who has fallen seriously ill. He also finds himself having the babysit the second Laurence son and to contend with Charles Arthur Hammond, who harbours political plans of his own._

“You let Horatio fight a duel?” Iskierka exclaimed, when Temeraire had given her an abridged account of the last few day’s events.

“I wouldn’t have let him, if I had known,” Temeraire grumbled, “It’s not my fault you didn’t teach him the rules.”

“So I am to blame now, am I?” Iskierka snarled, “I wonder why you took such a badly trained captain then. I certainly didn’t force you to.”

Temeraire stared at her angrily, and said nothing.

“This business with Ning,” Iskierka said, when she was done relishing her victory, “I don’t think I can be blamed for that, either.”

“Neither can I,” Temeraire said, “She would never listen to me… quite like her mother.”

“Yes, reckless and silly, just like her father.”

They shared another moment of silent disharmony, staring at the gulls.

“I bet you shan’t manage to get her back, even if you drag that pathetic boy all the way to China,” Iskierka said, “Are you sure he is the right one, anyways? He looks not eighteen…”

Temeraire flattened his ruff. “Don’t insult Will.”

“Pah. I bet-“

“What _do_ you bet, then?” Temeraire said, heatedly. He was getting fed up with her bluster.

Iskierka narrowed her eyes. “You want to bet? Fine. Let us have a wager, then. If you manage to bring Ning back, you may keep Horatio, and you can have half my fortune.”

“Very well,” Temeraire nodded, “That would suit me perfectly.”

“But if you lose, which I expect,” she added, viciously, “I get half _your_ fortune, and I will take Horatio for _my_ captain, since Granby means to retire and look after Little with his coughing sickness. And you had better hurry up, because Granby says there is no cure for it." She gave an exasperated snort, as if it was very inconsiderate of Captain Little to be so very ill. "A hundred days should be more than enough.”

“Agreed,” Temeraire said, "That will be easy, if all one has to do is fly to China and back. Ought we find someone to write it all down? … Isabella?” he called, but then remembered she had gone inside the fortress with Will and Granby. His runners weren’t there either, of course. With a guilty pang, he remembered the rest of his crew left behind at Loch Laggan where they had been training. Acquiring a crew had been one of the best parts about returning to the Corps, and he did not like to leave them unsupervised. He wondered briefly whether they might be sent to other dragons, as had happened when Laurence had been accused of treason, thirty years ago. It would be a wretched shame, now that they had finally started working together so well. But no, he told himself, the thing he had done was a little irregular, but not at all the same as treason.

“Look, there!” Iskierka cried, interrupting his thoughts, and pointed a talon at the sky. There was a dragon flying towards the fortress, alone.

“Why, that is Churki” Temeraire said, confused, when the feathered shape drew closer. She soon landed next to them in the wide castle courtyard, unmolested by the covert’s guard dragons thanks to the gleaming-white collar set with pearls and white topazes that marked a dragon in the diplomatic service, which she had contrived herself. Mr Hammond clambered off her back, and behind him, to Temeraire’s surprise, followed Lieutenant Ingram, one of his own officers.

“We found you at last! You abominable creature,” Mr Hammond panted, hurrying across to Temeraire. He had put on rather a lot of weight these last few years. “You made me trudge all the way up to Scotland with an urgent message, only to find you had abandoned post in a mad rush, so Lieutenant Ingram and myself had to trek through Derbyshire in search of you and your captain, and when we had finally found him, you had abandoned him altogether! What sort of a dragon are you? Admiral Laurence is very worried. I promised him to send word back to him directly, when we found you again.”

He said it with a grin, but Temeraire could not help feeling rattled, especially at the mention of Laurence’s name. Iskierka and Churki put their heads together, chattering in low voices of disapproval, and Temeraire felt quite a scrub.

“I am very sorry that Laurence is upset,” he said, “Pray tell me, how is Horatio?”

“Heartbroken,” Lieutenant Ingram said flatly, “over your abandon, as any captain would be.”

Temeraire lowered his head, confused. “But Little Will told me Horatio said he did not mind if we went without him, since it is so very important that we go quickly, and he is too poorly to come.”

“Who is Little Will?” the lieutenant asked, confused.

“Admiral Laurence’s other son, the Captain’s brother,” Hammond explained, “You may not have heard of him, he is not in the Corps.”

He turned away, distracted, even as Lieutenant Ingram stared in surprise. A few of the fortress’ guardsmen had come across to them now, to greet Churki and politely inquire after the cause of Hammond’s visit, to which he replied he would like to speak to Mr Laurence. They exchanged blank looks until one of the soldiers who had witnessed the earlier commotion of Temeraire’s arrival finally made the link and pointed them to the old medieval tower at the center of the fortress. “I think he’s the one that’s gone with the Admiral.”

“Lieutenant, are you coming?” Hammond called, over his shoulder, and set off towards the tower.

Mr Ingram was still looking at Temeraire. “Well, this Little Will might not have been entirely truthful in what he said about Captain Laurence’s permission to make away," he muttered, quietly, "But who can blame him – it must be very hard to see so glorious a dragon pass to one’s brother, where one might have entertained hopes.”

“You mean to say Little Will has been lying to me?” Temeraire asked, baffled, but Ingram had already hurried to catch up with Hammond.

Temeraire stared after him. He did not dislike Ingram, he was very capable and experienced an officer, a few years older than Horatio which seemed odd at times when Horatio was giving him orders, but his notions were old-fashioned. Probably he assumed nasty things about Will only because he could not believe a dragon would leave his captain behind, even with a good reason, and he would likely have been equally outraged by his wager with Iskierka – although thinking of that wretched business again, Temeraire felt a very bad dragon indeed. He would never have risked losing Laurence in a bet, for all the gold and jewels in the world, and wasn’t sure why he had given in so willingly, concerning Horatio. It wasn’t at all reasonable for Iskierka to demand such drastic terms. No, he would speak to her again, once Ingram was out of earshot, and agree a different prize, a herd of cows perhaps. Laurence raised very tasty ones, in the Peaks.

But Iskierka was faster.

“Pray wait a moment, Mr Ingram!” she called after him, a militant gleam in her eye, “We have something very important to be done, it will only take a moment. Can you write neatly? … Yes? Splendid. Would you draw up a contract, for Temeraire and me?”

\--

Apart from the lack of refined manners that marked a man raised in the Corps, Admiral Granby was not as irascible as the first impression had suggested. His windswept dark hair, the hook that sat where the left hand ought to have been, and the gaudy gold-frogged coat gave him the air of a pirate, but the sharp lines etched in his face seemed to derive from weather and good humour more than bitterness. He tossed aside his coat when they reached his rooms in the medieval keep of Dover Castle – underneath, his clothing was perfectly plain – and cleared a seat for Will and Isabella by unceremoniously shoving aside a few piles of maps and unopened correspondence. When he learned they hadn’t eaten anything that day, he rang for a servant to bring them a cold breakfast and strong dark tea. Then he demanded to know what on earth had inspired Temeraire to run off without captain or crew, and to start preying on the Navy’s scrapped craft.

Already a little more at ease, Little Will told him of Horatio’s misfortune and the letter from Ning, in between bites of breakfast. Isabella sat very quietly and barely touched her plate, and Will wondered whether Granby might punish her for any presumed part in Temeraire’s misadventure. Finding the thought quite unbearable, he hurried to clarify that it had been his decision alone to try and go to China, and even assumed responsibility for the sinking of the _Temeraire_.

Granby first stared, and then snorted with laughter. “Your decision? Mr Laurence, I asked you to be candid, so pray leave off the tall tales. It would be most peculiar for an untrained man like yourself to sidle up to a harnessed beast and tell him, I thought we might go somewhere, and the dragon to meekly follow suit. I will make allowances for Temeraire being distraught over his captain – dragons have been known to make the most headless starts under such circumstances – but to expect me to believe that he acted on your orders is plain absurd.”

Little Will stared at his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. He did not like being lectured on the temperament of dragons, much less the temperament of the dragon with whom he had spent the best part of his childhood, but the admiral’s words hit a raw spot. He was not Temeraire’s captain, and despite all he knew about dragons, he would only ever seem an intruder to Granby or any other aviator. In half a day with Temeraire, he had already done a vast amount of damage. It might be best for both of them if their journey came to an end here, at Dover, and some more skilled man accompanied Temeraire on his journey to China, if Granby and the admiralty agreed he might go.

There was a knock on the door. “Enter,” Granby called, sighing, and a group of ground soldiers respectfully ushered in a chubby man in a fine coat, accompanied by a lieutenant of thirty or so.

Will blinked. He knew the older man's face, knew it quite well. The fellow had dined at Castleton Hall a few times, with his father and Mr Tharkay. Mr Hammock, no, Hammond, was his name. Will remembered well how once, when he was about twelve years old, Mr Hammond had addressed him across the dinner-table and asked, in fluent Mandarin: “So I hear you can speak Chinese?” To which Will had nodded, blushing, and replied in the same tongue: “Yes, Sir, Lung Tien Xiang is teaching me.” Mr Hammond’s face had lit up, and he had looked eager to ask more, but Laurence had stiffened, overhearing the exchange, and ordered his son to bed, which Will had found very unfair at the time, his father evidently begrudging him even this one small scrap of attention.

Mr Hammond now greeted Granby with a wary familiarity, ignoring the Admiral’s raised brow, and then turned to Will, saying “Mr Laurence! I trust you remember me, Arthur Hammond of Her Majesty’s foreign ministry. I am very glad we found you at last.” He introduced his companion as Lieutenant James Ingram.

“Pray sit down and have something to drink,” Granby said, wrily, his face expressing that a bad day had this very instant gone to worse.

Mr Hammond sat down, but he ignored the tea offered him and instead forged ahead: “We have had some disconcerting news from our informants in China concerning Temeraire’s daughter, Ning. A new Celestial has hatched, and to avoid a squabble for power his ministers advised the Emperor to send Ning away from the palace, to a retirement of sorts, and the new Celestial, a Lung Tien Li Ming, to take her place as the Emperor’s companion.”

“Yes, yes, we know all of that already,” Temeraire said, impatiently peering through the small window. Granby’s quarters were on the fourth floor, but sitting on his haunches, he could easily look inside. “And now she has gone to the East India Company, and means to bully the Chinese into taking her back. Which is very unlikely to work, and a very tactless thing to do in any case, if you ask me.”

“Oh,” Hammond said, faintly. “I am afraid your news runs ahead of mine. The East India Company, you say?” He looked more than disconcerted.

“So she wrote to me. Has Laurence not told you?” Temeraire asked, “I left the letter with him.”

Hammond's cheeks flushed. “No, I am afraid he has not been so kind as to share this piece of intelligence with me, although it must render the mission all the more urgent.” He turned back to Will. “Mr Laurence, your father assures me you haven’t the slightest inclination to involve yourself in either warfare or diplomacy, and my orders were for your brother, but seeing he is sadly incapacitated, I must apply to your patriotic feelings to step up to the mark with a matter of the greatest importance.”

He paused to gauge the effect of his words. Will still looked at him blankly. He did not understand what immediate business the Queen’s diplomat had with Ning.

“I am sorry to say tensions with China have come to a head, recently, and the Chinese are threatening to close their ports to our traders,” Hammond explained, “The emperor has been roundly refusing to grant our envoys even a short audience, to try and repair relations. I am sorry to hear Ning’s behaviour is now rendering the situation even more delicate. Your brother and Temeraire were our last hope – the Emperor can hardly refuse to see his own kin… So I must entreat you to take your brother’s place. You might be able to negotiate a treaty to preserve the peace, and reopen the ports… Of course, you don’t need to worry about managing the dragon. Mr Ingram assures me he feels capable of that, and I can send along a trusted member of my diplomatic staff to carry out the negotiations, if the opportunity arises. Your role would be merely that of a … figurehead, so to speak, and-“

“I have never heard anything so impertinent in my whole life,” Admiral Granby interrupted, irate. “You cannot go around giving this boy orders as if he was one of your subordinates, and much less so Temeraire, and above all you have no damn business interfering with the promotion of a lieutenant to acting-captain, no matter whether deserving of not,” this with a glance at Mr Ingram, who stood close to the door, his face unmoved, “or the instatement of Mr Laurence in such a role. It would set a very bad example to the rest of the Corps if an untrained man were given so priceless a dragon, and Temeraire’s own captain left behind. I do see they are brothers, but nevertheless, it is quite out of the ordinary way.”

“I do respect your feelings, Admiral,” Mr Hammond said, tartly, his tone suggesting quite the opposite, “But may I suggest that a crucial diplomatic mission takes precedence before the internal affairs of the Corps?”

Granby drew in his breath for an angry reply, but before he could speak, Will said, hurriedly: “Thank you, Mr Hammond. Your faith in me is most unfounded. I haven’t the slightest idea how I, of all people, should win the Chinese emperor’s favour. I doubt he thinks of me as kin. But more importantly, I have already gone too far, and don’t intend to do any more damage. As the Admiral says, Temeraire is my brother’s, and I have no intention of stealing him away or posturing as an aerial captain. Good day to you, sirs.”

He made a start for the door even as he heard Temeraire’s yelp of protest outside. “But Will, I thought we were going to China anyways, for Ning? What could be so very bad about what Hammond is asking us to do – we might try?”

“I told you," Iskierka sighed. “He is a coward. Well, you shall have to go to China alone then, and be back in a hundred days.”

\---

Will slammed the door behind him, cutting off the voices to a muffled din, and leaned against it. He stared at the dark looming staircase, stone steps hollowed by centuries of use, men marching up and down to do their duty to England. _Duty_ a word he hated, one his father liked to harp on about far too much, a hollow husk that could be bent to suit those in power and control. He suddenly remembered a bedtime story his mother had once told him and Horatio, of the network of tunnels in the soft limestone beneath Dover castle, much enlarged during the threat of Napoleon’s invasion. She had made a ghost story of it, of people getting lost in the catacombs never to be seen again, and Will had been spooked and thoroughly robbed of sleep. In this moment, however, he would have given an arm and a leg to know where the entrance to those passages lay, so that he too could be swallowed up from the face of the earth.

He stumbled forward when the door was abruptly thrown open, slamming into his back, and Isabella stormed out. She all but shot past him in her rush, but hearing his stifled noise of pain, she turned and stared at him.

“What is this idiocy of rushing off?” she hissed, “Have you not heard what the dragons are on about?”

He pushed the door shut and stared at her angrily. He knew he had made a perfect spectacle of himself, and now could not even get back to his university, without a penny in his pocket or a dragon to take him. In a minute, he would have to go back to ask Granby for help, like a child. Or, even worse, he could go down the stairs and face Temeraire. “No, and I don’t care,” he said resentfully, rubbing his back, “I’m done with all of this, people telling me what I can and cannot do, and either calling me a sneaking liar or a _figurehead_. I’m going back to my college.”

“The devil you are,” she replied, heatedly, “Never mind that Hammond fellow, but we haven’t a minute to lose. Temeraire and Iskierka have gotten it into their heads to start a wager, on whether Temeraire can get to China and back with Ning in a hundred days.”

“So what?” Will asked. He pushed past her and started down the stairs.

Isabella followed him, doggedly. “According to the terms of the wager, if Temeraire loses, Iskierka will get half his fortune, and take Horatio for her captain. The ink’s dry on it, that treacherous Mr Ingram wrote it out for them without thinking to consult either of us… he only wants to get his hands on Temeraire, I tell you.”

“And I tell you, I’m done with all of you, dragons and aviators. Horatio got you into this mess, now you can see how you get out of it. It’s none of my business. Besides, I don’t see what good I should do, going to China. Leave me alone.” He opened the door to the courtyard, light and sea air streaming into the dark staircase.

Isabella stopped dead. “Fine, Uncle William,” she said, flatly, “The captain got himself into this _mess_ only because that Rankin fellow was insulting your own father, but why should you care. Hammond said that if you were to succeed, he would be able to use that to sway the admiralty to let Horatio off, but of course that is no concern to you. Iskierka might snatch your brother away, and leave me without a post if Temeraire doesn’t take another, but that is none of your business. You are happy to stand idle while our family and Temeraire are shamed. So you know what? You are a damned coward after all.”

She spat, and turned away to ascend the stairs.

“He is not a coward,” a deep inhuman voice said, outside, “Will, I am sorry to hear you don’t want to go to China. But pray don’t listen to what they say.”

He froze in the doorway. Temeraire sat in the courtyard, his ruff flattened and his tail curled tightly around his tensed body, and Will had to curb the strongest impulse to run to him straight away and put a soothing hand on the trembling side. He sometimes thought that Temeraire was the earliest memory he had in his life, the sleek black hide and warm breath deeply familiar, the most comforting thing he knew. It was impossible to bear, seeing him so dejected.

“Temeraire, I… I… ” he stammered, “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t see what good I will do you with your wager, and surely won’t be able to achieve any of the things Hammond expects. But if you want me to… I mean… if you will suffer me and my inexperience and my incompetence, I will go.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Iskierka learns of Horatio’s injury and Ning’s bad behaviour and blames Temeraire for both. In the ensuing argument, they settle a bet: If Temeraire can return Ning from China within a hundred days, Iskierka will hand over half her fortune. If he fails, Temeraire will pay her instead and let Iskierka have Horatio for captain. Hammond, meanwhile, tries to rope Temeraire and Will into a diplomatic mission to China to repair relations after trade disputes and Ning’s recent escapades. Will would rather return to his quiet college. However, he eventually relents in order to save Temeraire’s and his family’s reputation. Granby assigns them a makeshift crew including Horatio’s first lieutenant Ingram._

_I am sorry to record that in the last four days, we have not made any progress beyond Rhenish Prussia,_ Will wrote in Temeraire’s log, noting the date as 13th June, 1838.

He had found the logbook wrapped in tarpaulin and tucked away in a pouch on Temeraire’s harness. Opening it, he hadn’t been able to suppress a sense of awe. The first entries were dated long before his birth, to the time of the war with Napoleon. Some pages were blood-stained, others scorched. Through it all, with a steady hand, his father had kept a meticulous record of their estimated position, Temeraire’s health, the numbers of their crew, names of men injured or lost in combat, and the state of their provisions, along with sketched maps and remarks on the climate or points of interest to a navigator’s eyes. There was a scientific air to it, and for the first time, Little Will glimpsed a side of his father that he could sympathize with whole-heartedly.

An entry from 1814 recorded Temeraire’s retirement from the service, with a bold and final-looking line drawn underneath it. Then, the ink less faded and dated over twenty years later, was his father’s final entry into the log. With a small flourish that hinted at his pride, he had recorded the appointment of Captain Horatio John Laurence, and Temeraire’s return to the Aerial Corps, _so that the Keeping of this Record will pass into the hands of Temeraire’s second Captain_.

The few pages that followed were a scanty effort. Horatio had mostly simply jotted down dates and place names, often with gaps of weeks between them, and some of it quite illegible. He evidently did not care much for record-keeping, in the way of most aviators. Will had overheard his parents bickering about the subject often enough.

He now had rather too much time on his hands for his own entries. Sighing, Will ran a thumb over the page he had just filled in what he knew to be a poor imitation of his father’s style, and picked up his letter to Mr Tharkay to append to it.

_As soon as we had crossed the channel and reached Rotterdam, four days ago now, Temeraire got it into his head that I was in need of a new coat, and wouldn’t rest until I had acquired one, although I daresay I disappointed him by not settling for the glossy silk he admired the most._

The coat he had bought in the end was a serviceable and sturdy brown tweed. Will did not write how taken aback he had been when the banker they'd seen to withdraw the necessary funds had told them the sum in Temeraire’s account. Temeraire’s considerable fortune made the wager with Iskierka all the more appalling; it would have bought wardrobes of silken coats even if one discounted the uncertain sum due in damages for the _Téméraire_ , which had not yet been deducted. Hammond had agreed to carry out the haggling over the decommissioned hull on their behalf, one of the few concrete promises he had made them in return for the hopeless mission.

_Temeraire also wishes for a new collar, as he has left his breastplate in Scotland and he saw Churki wear a striking enameled piece with pearls apparently marking her a diplomat, but I have tried in vain to find anything of the sort. I could not bear to return empty-handed, and so I foolishly settled for several yards of white Brussels lace. It was pretty in the shop window and I thought it might look a little like the meshwork I've seen Chinese dragons wear on the engravings You have shown me, but sadly it did not display to advantage on Temeraire’s neck, looking more like a curtain gone astray. I wasn’t able to return it, so it is travelling with us now. Maybe someone in England will care for it, after we return. We have otherwise made good progress across the Low Countries and reached Rhenish Prussia two days ago. Since then, our journey has come to a halt._

To their misfortune, Temeraire’s fame in the German states seemed to eclipse even that in England. Poets had written ballads in honour of England’s heroic dragon, the liberator of Prussia’s Aerial Corps and victor over Napoleon's scheming dragon Lien, and an operatic production inspired by his deeds had been a resounding success a few years ago, making him even more of a household name. A small Prussian Mauerfuchs had intercepted them at the border, demanding to see their papers, to which Temeraire had replied he had never heard anything so ridiculous as a dragon carrying a passport. The little orange beast had bristled and looked prepared to make a fuss despite its diminutive size, but had frozen at the sound of Temeraire’s name when Will had tried to call him to order.

“Temeraire? _Der_ Temeraire?” he had chirped.

“Yes, you do have the advantage of me,” Temeraire had said, “And only because I don’t have a collar, you have no right to molest me. I’m a diplomat, and passing through.”

The Mauerfuchs had nattered with his captain in an excited flurry of German, and the man had bowed to Will to request that they do them the honour of accompanying them to their covert, so all the dragons and crews there could meet so distinguished a dragon. Temeraire had looked too flattered for Will to put up any serious resistance.

_In honour of Temeraire, we have been passed along like a baton, from covert to townshall to palace, to be admired and feasted. Temeraire has had a joyful reunion with a heavyweight called Eroica, a fearsome plate-armoured beast whom he calls an old comrade-in-arms. His Captain is Carl von Dyhern, a friendly fellow who has made himself my guide and interpreter. He sends his respects to Father, as he says his late father and mine were acquainted during the time of the War._

Dyhern, a thick-set and jovial young man some two or three years his senior, had indeed been something of a guardian angel, his heavyweight shielding them from the worst excesses of the populace’s adulation. Word of their arrival had travelled much faster than their snail’s pace, so at nearly every town a delegation of citizens insisted on paying their respects, mayors and guild-masters squabbling over the honour of hosting them. By the end of the third day, Little Will had received three proposals of marriage to daughters of local dignitaries, which Temeraire had summarily rejected on his behalf before Dyhern could so much as translate. More than ever, Will felt like an impostor, being showered with credit for actions that hadn’t been his own. He wondered gloomily what his father would have made of it, or Horatio. He couldn’t quite divine Laurence’s reaction, but he felt certain Horatio would have found the situation hilarious. For his part, he was simply embarrassed.

_I have tried multiple times to convince our hosts of the urgent nature of our mission, and Dyhern is very sympathetic. However, we haven’t been able to dodge an invitation to dinner by the Crown Prince himself, and therefore we have presently wound up at one of his residences near Cologne. Dyhern thinks that the Prince might grant us a permit of free passage so we can swiftly cross the borders of the many other princely-states. It would be a most useful thing to have, seeing how things have gone on our first attempt, and I am determined not to waste the chance._

This much was true, although he dreaded the evening ahead and had accepted the invitation only with the greatest sense of discomfiture. He was the son of a baron and a duchess, the nephew of the present Lord Allendale, and ought to be at ease in polite company. But he had not inherited his father’s social graces, nor had his years of schooling been able to repair that fault. Will knew he could always be relied upon to say something tactless, to muddle up the cutlery or upset the gravy-boat. Laurence had eventually given up trying to rope him into political receptions, even for causes they both cared about, such as the welfare of dragons, as Little Will was sure to cause more damage than good. To make matters worse, they were losing more precious time, as Prince Frederick had been delayed on his way to his residence and the planned feast had already been postponed a day. Will had gone to the grounds to be nearer to Temeraire and out of the way of the servants in the palace who were busy with absurdly elaborate preparations, great platters of silver and gold being brought out, garlands hung, and even the crystal chandeliers carefully removed to be polished.

_Pray give my love to Horatio. All my prayers are for his speedy recovery, and a measured response from the admiralty. Also to dear Mrs Walker, and to Mother, if she is still at Castleton, although I suspect she is not best pleased with me at present. I will write to Father as soon as I can find the time. It may reassure him to hear that Temeraire is well, and in good spirits.  
_

_Your affectionate godson_

_W. T._ _Laurence_

He was unhappy with his letter's ending; it felt cowardly to ask Mr Tharkay to act as go-between for him and his father, but at present, he could not manage anything better. He had begun a letter to Laurence, but after writing the date and a formal line of greeting, had been at a loss how to continue, torn over whether to launch into an apology or not, his hand paralysed as he imagined the deep frown on his father’s forehead as he read either variant, either too submissive or lacking in respect.

Folding up his letter, Will noticed Dyhern hurrying towards him carrying a bundle of cloth, his face reddened in the unusually warm June day. He put down his reading glasses and rose to greet the Prussian captain. “Have you any news about the dinner?” he asked.

Dyhern held out the bundle. “I do. Prince Frederick means to make you an honorary member of our Corps, on account of all Temeraire has done, so you are to wear this tonight.” Beaming, he unrolled the bundle to reveal the black and red dress uniform of the Prussian Aerial Corps.

Will hesitated, caught off-guard by this new height of unwarranted attention. He wondered whether it might be seen an act of disloyalty to his own nation to wear it, but Dyhern looked so enthusiastic that he felt a scrub to turn it down. He hadn’t formally been made a Captain of the British Corps, and no fellow Briton would see it, apart from Temeraire’s small crew. Besides Isabella Dlamini and Lieutenant Ingram, Admiral Granby had assigned them a harnessmaster with an assistant, a runner, a young dragon-surgeon fresh from his training, and two officers in the role of riflemen picked from Iskierka’s crew, Marlow and Jenkins, who had evidently been tasked with keeping an eye on Will whom nobody trusted to defend himself. They followed him everywhere and were lurking in the shadows even now, watching his steps like those of a child. None of them had so far shown him any particular respect or warmth, and they applied to Mr Ingram for orders, which Will couldn’t begrudge them - he was perfectly conscious of his inexperience, and of how poor and ignorant a replacement he made for his brother. However, he thought resentfully, if the Prussians chose to treat him with respect for Temeraire’s sake, could he really be expected to fling the gesture back in their faces just to please men who would likely always see him as an usurper and upstart, no matter how hard to he tried to learn about their ways?

Abruptly resolved, he took the coat and trousers from Dyhern’s hands. “Thank you, Carl. It is a great honour.”

“You should see to getting Temeraire ready,” Dyhern said, blotting his forehead, “I’ve been told the Prince will arrive shortly, and-” He checked himself, his mouth half-open, but then he simply smiled, touched his hat and turned to hurry away again.

Will gathered up his things and turned to look for Temeraire, but the dragon was no longer dozing where he had last seen him. He called out, "Temeraire?" but in place of a reply, there was only a faint splash and cheering, and a noisy cloud of waterfowl rose from behind a group of large ornamentally trimmed yew trees.

“Mr Jenkins, Mr Marlow, would you be so kind as to stay here for a moment and keep a watch on my things?” Will asked the riflemen, who had quit their shady spot to continue their watch over him, and were now eyeing the Prussian uniform suspiciously. Jenkins tried to object, but Will scowled at him unflinching, too exasperated to be cowed.

“Yes, Sir,” Jenkins said, with a startled look, swallowing his protest, and both of them sullenly took up post over the bundle of books, pens and ink-stand.

Will nodded and turned away to walk towards the sound of the commotion.

“Temeraire, what are you doing?” he called, dismayed, when he had hurried around the towering mass of the yews. Temeraire had stepped into one of the large shallow ornamental ponds that stretched in this part of the park and had splashed around to wet his back, covering himself with duckweed.

“It is very warm today, so I wanted to refresh myself, and Isabella offered to wash me,” he said innocently, green water dripping from his tendrils and ruff.

“ _Wash_ you? But Temeraire, you are all over filth! You cannot appear before the Prince like this. We must get that duckweed off you…. Isabella!”

She appeared behind Temeraire’s tail, dripping wet and wearing an expression of mingled guilt and defiance. Will was horrified to see how her shirt clung to her chest and hips. He was suddenly very glad that he had made the riflemen stay behind. Behind her followed little Theodore Hawkes, Temeraire’s runner, similarly drenched.

“Shall we wipe him down straight away, Acting-Captain?" she asked, practically, “I’m not invited to that dinner, anyway.”

“No,” Little Will said, striving very hard to put authority into his voice, “You will get yourself changed, and next time set a better example to Mr Hawkes. You know I’m very sorry you cannot come to the dinner, but there is no reason to behave childishly. You know we had an agreement.”

“Oh, I don’t mind about the dinner _._ It just it seems to me very strange that I should not finish clean-“

“Pray put this on when you’re walking where you might be seen,” Will interrupted, holding out the Prussian dress coat while keeping his eyes fixed on a point above her head. She accepted it with an exasperated release of air, threw it over her shoulders like a cape and strode away.

Will pressed his lips together, dismayed. Fortunately the benches and paths around the ponds were deserted in the heat, so no outsider had observed them, but he was still disappointed in her behavior, almost as though she wished to cause scandal. Female aviators were unheard of in the Prussian Corps, which flew neither Longwings nor Xenicas, and Dyhern had laughed at the notion when Will had brought it up probingly. Will had pleaded with Isabella to either go back to female dress and pose as a passenger, or to try and remain unseen. After their argument at Dover, this request had given her fresh cause for offense, and though she had chosen the latter option, she had since treated him with lofty formality, having moved from 'Uncle William' to 'Acting-Captain Laurence', which was even worse. And now this, making a spectacle of herself in the very palace grounds. He would happily have shrugged it off as adolescent posturing, trying to test the limits of his patience, but he considered Isabella above such folly, and so it felt more like a deliberate scorn. It hurt worse than the contempt of Lieutenant Ingram and the other aviators, Izzy being his kin and childhood friend after all. But then, he told himself, one couldn’t wish to be respected as a Captain and simultaneously enjoy the informality of friendship with those who were, after all, subordinates. He would have to learn to put a proper distance between them for the duration of the journey, if he didn’t wish to have to argue to doomsday over every unpleasant order he might give. Once he had handed the command back to Horatio, he would be able to make amends. He thought he might invite her to a cup of hot chocolate – he knew she loved chocolate – and they would laugh about the whole thing.

“Oh, but Will, are you angry?” Temeraire asked, bending his head down anxiously, “It was all my idea! You shouldn't chide her.” He heaved himself out of the basin with a little hop and flap of wings, leaving talon-marks in the lawn where he landed. He shook himself vigorously, splashing muddy water, and stretched his neck to look after the coat as Isabella went away, buttons gleaming in the sun. “But why, that looks very nice! Is it yours, Will? It is much prettier than your other coat.”

“Yes, it is a gift from our hosts,” Will sighed, wiping duckweed off his arms, “Mr Hawkes, will you fetch me some rags and a bucket?”

He was still engaged in clambering about Temeraire’s back and sides to clean him, Hawkes dashing forwards and back from a fountain with buckets of fresh water, when he heard a voice ask, in clear English, “Are you Captain Laurence?” making him jump.

Stepping out from the shadow of Temeraire’s wing, he caught sight of a dark-haired young woman, barely more than a girl, standing by the yew trees. Her pale face seemed vaguely familiar, although he could not quite place her. She was not particularly handsome, but her travelling-cloak looked exceptionally fine, and there was a look of determination on her face that seemed startling in so young a girl.

Temeraire, who had drowsed off contentedly during his cleaning, opened an eye. “Yes, he is my captain, and he doesn’t want to marry anyone, so you needn’t bother asking.”

“Acting-Captain Laurence of Temeraire, at your service,” he said, hurrying to bow while hastily buttoning up his waistcoat and pulling his shirt-sleeves down. But she scarcely paid him any attention.

“So this is your dragon?” she asked, without introducing herself, and walked up to Temeraire’s side. “May I touch him?”

Temeraire edged away from her outstretched hand. “Will, may she?” he asked, confused.

Little Will could not suppress a smile. It was indeed a question he had not heard before, especially not from a fashionable young lady. “I suppose, my dear, if you don’t mind.”

Recovering the air of the parliamentary dragon, Temeraire held out a talon, which she took unfazed. “Pleased to meet you,” Temeraire said, politely.

“I see you are the best-mannered creature in the world,” she exclaimed, “Quite the opposite of what they say about dragons. Oh, how I would like to have a dragon of my own! It would be very handy, to keep away the people who try and tell me what to do."

“I can confirm it answers well, on that account, although it attracts fresh obligations,” Will said drily.

“They say a woman isn’t allowed to have one, for it is too dangerous, but that is all stuff. I know for a fact there are women serving in my Aerial Corps”, she said, still stroking Temeraire’s foreleg as one might a horse, which Temeraire endured with a puzzled look, bringing his head down to peer at her more closely. _My Corps,_ Will thought. Perhaps she was the daughter of an officer. He wondered whether he might inquire after her name, as she had still neglected to introduce herself, a rather jarring contrast to her otherwise good manners and impeccable accent.

“Indeed. My own mother captained a Longwing for many years, and my sister does now,” he said, but before he could follow it up with his question, she burst out hurriedly:

“Do you suppose you might take me flying? Just a very short distance?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind,” Temeraire said, “We have not been flying today, Will.”

“Victoria!” a voice shrilled behind them that moment. Will turned to see two older ladies hurrying towards them, flushed in their corsets and petticoats. “There you are!” one of them cried, “What on earth are you thinking, running off into the gardens like this? You had us all in such a fright! I have told you so many times it won’t do now, my sweet Queen, you aren't to go out without a guard, and – oh!” she ended faintly, catching sight of Temeraire’s claws next to her mistress.

There was a furrow of annoyance on the girl’s forehead as she turned to Will. “That will be Baroness Lehzen... I must go. Thank you, Captain, and Temeraire. I have been very happy to meet you. I shall see you at the dinner, I suppose?”

Will stared at her, dumbstruck as recognition suddenly dawned. He had indeed seen her face before. It graced medals and engravings, sat in a gilded frame in his college hall, and was even struck on the pennies in his pocket. Under the censorious eyes of her chaperones, he bent his knee, stammering, “Your Majesty.”

\--

“A toast to Temeraire, and his Captain,” Crown Prince Frederick proposed, over the soup.

Will mechanically moved his hand to his glass as a cheer went up along the table, trying not to blush while consoling himself that the toast was in truth addressed to his father, who thoroughly deserved it. He felt utterly out of place at a table with ministers, field-marshals, and, worst of all, the Queen of England. Victoria was visiting the German kingdoms on an informal tour staying with her mother's relatives, not a state visit at all, yet the table was intimidatingly crowded with silver and crystal, the purpose of the elaborate preparations suddenly plain. Will was sweating under the thick broadcloth of the gifted uniform and he eyed Dyhern darkly, annoyed at his guide for keeping news of the Queen’s anticipated visit from him. Indeed, the Prussian captain averted his eyes rather sheepishly whenever Will looked in his direction, which could hardly be avoided as they had been seated almost opposite each other. Dyhern's services as a translator were not presently required, however, since in the Queen’s presence, the conversation naturally proceeded in English. From the polite but reserved exchanges so far, Will had gathered that the Prussian aristocrats and ministers had as little love for dragons as did those in England, but since both the Crown Prince and Queen Victoria had shown enthusiasm for Temeraire, they were forced to feign interest and tolerate Will’s and Dyhern’s presence at the table.

“Pray may I make so bold as to ask, how did you come to be a Captain at so young an age?” one of the Queen’s ladies inquired of Dyhern, fanning herself daintily.

“Oh, I never expected to be one at this time,” Dyhern said, shifting nervously in his seat. “My father, Admiral Dyhern, died unexpectedly from a seizure in the chest, three years ago.” A shadow fell over his face at the memory.

“How tragic, Captain, I am so sorry to have brought it up,” the lady-in-waiting said, snapping her fan shut and cupping her hands around her cheeks a little too theatrically to be sincere. The enormous sleeves of her shirred robe gave her the air of a plump bird. “My condolences for your great loss.”

Dyhern muttered something into his glass, and Will looked at him in sympathy, his earlier resentment fading away. He could well imagine how harrowing the experience must have been, even for a man raised to the prospect of inheriting a dragon, of having to come to terms with the death of his father as well as the sudden responsibility for a grief-stricken dragon.

“Why, Madam, it is nothing more than honour and duty to king and country demand,” Prince Frederick, who had evidently overheard, put in, and continued, addressing the whole table: “And more than that, the bond between a dragon and his rider seems to me a prime example of Divine Providence: man and beast bound by destiny to serve together, for the good of their nation… a smaller example of the same principle that governs the relationship between the king and his people. Captain Laurence, would you not agree?”

Will needed a moment to compose his features. Prince Frederick had expressed a great number of rather romantic notions during the course of the dinner, to which Will had mostly been able to nod acquiescence, but the last remark rankled in its naivety. Neither his father nor Temeraire had ever joined a party, choosing instead to vote according to their conscience on each notion brought before parliament, but Whig members or sympathizers had formed by far the greatest part of the guests at Will’s childhood home. He had never taken an interest in politics, himself, but he had absorbed at least some of their notions as his own convictions.

“Quite the contrary, Sire,” he said, “It is a lovely notion, yet I daresay nothing could be further from it. There is no divine providence involved in the pairing of a dragon and handler. Their relationship is founded on mutual respect and a bond of trust, which requires hard work and constant dedication rather than any divine blessing. If a captain were found neglectful or disrespectful of his dragon, nobody could force his beast to stay with him, and the same goes for the captain of a wilful and unreliable dragon. I daresay it is much the same for a people and its government, a sovereign ultimately deriving his power solely from the will of his – ouch!”

He dropped his spoon into his soup bowl, startled by a sharp kick to his shin under the table. Wiping soup from his lapel with his napkin, he caught Dyhern’s eye. In the candlelight, the young Captain’s face was ashen, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly, yet with great urgency.

That moment, a commotion broke out at the door to the hall. After a short and rather violent struggle, a slender young girl burst into the room, ducking away from the hands of the guard who tried to catch hold of her. Isabella looked about herself hurriedly, then walked straight up to the Prince’s table at the head of the room, negotiating the crowded hall with greater agility than the confused guard scrambling after her. She bobbed an awkward curtsy at the Prince and the Queen. She had punctiliously followed Will’s order and changed into a fresh shirt and trousers, even wearing a tidy necktie. The lady guests, however, did not appreciate her effort, small gasps of mingled shock and outrage travelling the length of the table and all heads turning to stare at her.

“Captain, you must come directly,” she said to Will urgently, ignoring the commotion with perfect ease, “There is a man come to speak to Temeraire, and the guards want to throw him out, but Temeraire will not let them, and they are starting to talk of summoning a dragon regiment-“

The sweating guard had now finally caught up with her, and caught hold of her arm ungently while murmuring a stream of apologies to the Prince. Will rose, appalled.

“Sir, you will let go of her immediately,” he said.

It was their turn to stare at him now, instead. “But, Captain, surely you cannot mean to listen to a… a…” the lady-in-waiting next to Dyhern began, but Will cut her off bluntly.

“She is one of Temeraire’s crew, and my niece. If you will excuse me a moment, I need to see to my dragon, as she has kindly come to tell me.”

One of the younger ladies sunk back in her chair pale and fainting, overcome by the heat, her tight-laced corset, the shocking apparition of a dark-skinned girl in trousers, and as a final straw, Will’s mention of her as his niece. Several guests rushed to her aid at once. In the confusion, Will quit the table without waiting for the Prince’s permission, waving at Isabella to follow him. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Lieutenant Ingram, Marlow and Jenkins rising from their seats at one of the other tables to follow them, confusedly pulling their napkins from their necks and looking ruefully at their half-eaten plates. At the high table, the Prince was blinking confused, Dyhern stared pale and ominous, and the young Queen alone, for all her perfectly bred composure, met his gaze with an amused sparkle in her eyes.

\--

He found Temeraire in the palace’s landing grounds a good distance from the main building, curled around a man whom he had invited to sit on his foreleg in a gesture of great favour, evidently deep in conversation. Eroica was with him, listening with interest while chewing on the remains of his dinner. Hovering a short distance away was a whole division of the palace’s guards, in shiny polished breastplates and shinguards more ornamental than practical, yet carrying pistols and swords of good steel, who were staring resentfully at Temeraire and his visitor, evidently not daring to come closer.

“Oh, Will, it is very good of you to come!" Temeraire said, "This is Mr Marx, who writes for a newspaper. I have been telling him about everything Laurence and me have achieved in England.”

The visitor, who looked young enough to be one of Will's fellow Oxford students and not at all threatening, slid from Temeraire’s leg and raised his hat to them. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain,” he said, "I have heard a great many things about your dragon, but I never dreamed I might have a chance to speak to him personally. I hope you will forgive my intrusion, but I have travelled all the way from Trier in the hope of catching you."

As soon as he moved, the troop of guards drew closer again, but Temeraire gave a low warning growl. “You shall leave my guest alone,” he snapped in their direction, “He doesn’t mean your Prince any harm, and we are just talking.”

“Will, you must tell him to stop immediately!” Dyhern called out that moment. He had evidently also left the dinner and was now hurrying towards the landing grounds in real alarm. He caught hold of Will’s arm as soon as he reached them, pulling him away from Mr Marx. “This rabble-rousing talk must stop, or he will have all of us in a world of trouble. As for you,” he glared at the journalist, “you may leave now, immediately, or I will set my dragon at you for trespassing on the Prince’s grounds, as by God I should be right now.” He paused, checking himself, and repeated the last sentence in German, a good deal colder, pointing at the sheet of paper in the man's hands where he had taken notes of his conversation with Temeraire.

Mr Marx looked back at the Captain disdainfully, muttering a short reply, before handing it over. He took possession of his hat and walking-cane, bowed to Temeraire, and hurried away into the dark. The guards looked on in confusion and alarm, one of them snapping a question at Dyhern, doubtless inquiring whether they ought not pursue and arrest the intruder after all, but Dyhern shook his head. After some discussion, the soldiers, too, took their leave.

“But, Eroica,” Temeraire inquired of the other dragon, confused, “is it right that you do not even have a parliament here, at all?”

Eroica blinked and shifted his massive head to look at his captain. "I suppose it is. I have never thought about it. Dyhern, ought we not have a parliament, do you think?"

Dyhern looked at him with a hounded expression. "My dear, pray do not listen to any of these ideas. Nobody needs a parliament when we have our glorious king, and his wise ministers, to guide us.”

He said the last sentence very loudly, as if he wished it to be overheard by the guards marching away, and Temeraire looked at him with mingled offense and disappointment.

Dyhern waved Will in the direction of the barracks that stood next to the muddy landing grounds and which presently lay deserted except for a few herdsmen who quit the officer's mess hastily as soon as Dyhern approached in his uniform and polished boots. Dyhern shuttered the window carefully, then he sat himself down heavily in a chair and took off his coat. In the glow of the single candle, his face was wary and he looked older than his five-and-twenty years when he said: “I am sorry to have upset him, Will, but I thought it the lesser evil. The Prince takes a very severe stance on liberalist leanings, which is to say, he does not tolerate them at all… I suppose you have not heard of the incident of ’32?"

Will shook his head, still confused and unable to make head or tail of Dyhern’s odd behaviour.  

Darting another look at the window, the captain continued: “Well, it was an ill-managed affair from start to finish. As you probably know, the Emperor Napoleon always understood to ingratiate himself with the population of his conquered realms, and established a very generous code of civil liberties in his provinces. Naturally, many of them had to be revoked after they came back under our rule, which offended men grown used to…” He stumbled over his words, groping for terms which might sound neutral, “… to less traditional ways. A few years ago, a group of liberals organized an open show of discontent to demand free speech, unity of the princely states under a national parliament, and a great many other things besides. It was attended by a whole crowd of people, and dragons as well. Several dragons even spoke on the occasion and demanded some of the provisions made in the _Code Draconique_ be enforced. I… well… I was there too, on Arcturus where I was second Lieutenant. Not from any personal political opinion, but out of curiosity and loyalty to my captain, who was quite taken with the revolutionary ideas. He spoke of your father often enough, and took English newspapers whenever he could get his hands on them.”

He tapped his finger on the confiscated notes on the table before him.

“It all came to nothing, in the end, for they could never agree on the goals they wished to pursue, making it easy work for the police and the army to quell any further attempts at rebellion. The ringleaders were brought before court and sentenced to death, which the king later commuted to hard labour. They were particularly severe on the dragons, even though some of them, Arcturus included, were decorated veterans. Their captains were demoted and the dragons sent to the breeding-grounds. When my captain and Arcturus were dismissed, it left me equally disgraced and unassigned for a number of years. I often blame my father’s untimely death on the shock he took from it... But after he was gone, there wasn’t much they could do about my succeeding him, as Eroica would take no other.”

He crumpled the note sheet savagely, throwing it into the cold fireplace, and finally looked up at Will. “But let us stop talking about me. Suffice it to be said that some of the arrested dragons openly cited Temeraire’s parliament speeches in their hearings. I must beg you to be careful. Prince Frederick doubtless intends to use Temeraire’s popularity to his advantage by showing himself as your friend, but that doesn’t mean either of you can go around stirring things up and openly contradicting him.”

Will stared at him with incredulity. “But why… why on earth did you not tell me any of this earlier, Carl? I had no notion…” The populace’s fanatical enthusiasm for Temeraire suddenly had quite a different flavor, and the gold-buttoned coat on his shoulders seemed a cheap bribe, impossibly stifling. He took it off and pulled his cravat loose, too. He longed to fling open the shuttered window and drink in the cool night air.

Dyhern drew a shirt-sleeve over his forehead. “I hoped to spare you the unpleasantness of it. You already looked so glum about the prospect of the dinner, even without further cause for concern. And I must confess it shames me to talk of these things, and my own behavior.”

“But there can be no shame in being loyal to your Captain and your dragon,” Will protested, “Besides, I think it is an appalling state of things here, if neither men nor dragons have a right to speak out for themselves. Surely every instinct must rebel against it! Have you no wish to improve the lot of dragons, then?"

Dyhern looked frightened again and motioned a hand as if to tell Will he ought to speak quieter. “I shan’t improve anything by getting myself thrown into prison,” he said, flatly, “I am no political man. I intend to keep Eroica happy and in harness as long as I may, I swore that much at my father’s funeral, and that is the end of it.”

Will did not quite see how one, the dragon’s happiness, could go without the other, his liberty, but Dyhern’s face made it plain that there was no point in trying to argue further.

Dyhern pushed up from his chair, reaching for his coat. “We must go back to the hall.”

When they returned to the table, they were met with an almost palpable coldness. Their absence had doubtless given the company ample opportunity to discuss Temeraire’s parliamentary activities, and the shocking fact that some of them had made it into English law. Will swallowed the remaining courses down with difficulty, his throat tight with something very near scorn, and as soon as the port had been drunk, both him and Dyhern absented themselves with the lame excuse of having to make sure their dragons were still calm, which none of the ministers and dignitaries thought to question. They walked out to the landing grounds together in perfect silence, each lost in their own thoughts, and found Temeraire and Eroica fast asleep.

“The Prince desires that you should not be held up on your journey any longer than is necessary," Dyhern said, "He has already asked Captain Rattwitz of Laetitius to escort you to the Alpine passes by the most opportune route, over quieter countryside, and you may depart tomorrow, if you like.”

Will nodded, this intelligence being not at all unwelcome, although it hurt to hear it delivered with a note of barely concealed relief in Dyhern's voice, even if Laetitius replacing Eroica as their guide should mean they would likely not meet again. One moment ago we were the toast of the party, he thought bitterly, and the next, all they can think of is how to be shot of us as quickly as possible.

He still thanked Dyhern earnestly for all he had done, and they shook hands and parted. Will lingered by the sleeping Temeraire’s side watching the Prussian captain walk away into the night, saddened to think that under different circumstances, they might have become real friends. There was nothing inviting in the splendor of his guest chamber in the palace, and after a brief moment of thought, he fetched a few threadbare blankets from the barracks, and curled up against Temeraire’s side.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Temeraire and Little Will reach Prussia, where Temeraire is famous and has become an icon for various political movements. Temeraire is happy to meet his old friend Eroica again, although he is disappointed with the lack of civil liberties and dragon rights. Will tries, and fails, not to make a cake of himself at a dinner with the Prussian crown prince and creates trouble for his guide and interpreter Captain Dyhern. He also encounters a strongheaded young woman whom he belatedly recognizes as Victoria (aka The Queen)._

Temeraire was glad to be flying again.

Captain Rattwitz hadn’t ten words of English or French, and neither did Laetitius, his middleweight, so there wasn’t much conversation to be had beyond the bare necessities of their route. They encountered a few small ferals perched on rocky outcrops, but they darted away before Temeraire could try to speak to them. The air was pleasantly cool at altitude, the landscape a blur of forested hills under the steady beat of his wings, and Temeraire could almost imagine himself back with Laurence, flying into battle.

Politics was well and good, and Laurence had often called it combat of a different sort. However, to Temeraire’s mind, it did not quite compare. Specifically, it did not result in anything like the steady stream of fights, prizes and decorations Iskierka had been able to boast over the last score of years.

He could imagine Laurence looking at him, worried and a little startled, asking whether Temeraire really, _sincerely_ , preferred to be putting down colonial revolts, many of them fought over quite legitimate grievances, to their work in parliament.

“I don’t," he told imaginary Laurence, “only it is very unfair that others should always be getting the glory, and we made to look like villains only for thinking about whether the greater cause of the fighting is just.”

Imaginary Laurence looked at him sternly, and Temeraire sighed. He couldn’t deny he and Laurence had quite swapped positions on this matter. Temeraire had been all enthusiastic about parliament, and Laurence more than reserved when Admiral Roland and Hammond had conspired at his entry into the House. However, with each passing year, Temeraire had grown more impatient with the endless debates that often did not produce any tangible outcome. Laurence, on the other hand, bore it all with increasing calm and fortitude, at times even a dry amusement born from experience.

“Of course he would get fed up,” Temeraire had overheard Jane say to Laurence one evening, through an open window of the bedroom at the London house, “He is a dragon in his prime while we have grown old and tired. I know it hurts sorely, but you ought to let him go, dear fellow.”

Temeraire would have liked to put in that he did not think Laurence old and tired at all, and that it was perfectly ridiculous to suggest Temeraire leave him behind, but it would have betrayed his eavesdropping, which he knew Laurence did not approve of, so he hadn’t said anything. And when Laurence had asked him, a short while later, whether he would consider rejoining the Corps now that Horatio had come of an age and experience to make Captain, he had agreed enthusiastically. He had seen Laurence’s face fall, and added hastily: “Of course it will only be possible if we aren’t to be sent anywhere outside of England, so that I can continue to see you.”

Laurence had quickly recovered his countenance and smiled. “My dear, we cannot ask for special treatment. Besides, it would be plain selfish of me to stand in Horatio’s way quite so much. He wouldn’t feel like he was a proper captain at all if I kept seeing you and interfering. But I am sure you will find him a very worthy substitute. He has been lieutenant on Iskierka for nearly five years now and acquitted himself admirably, from all Granby has told me. And you may write to me whenever you can spare the time. Jane has letters from Emily and Excidium every month or so, and I think that would be quite enough to satisfy me.”

“Of course I will write to you, every single day!" Temeraire had declared.

He felt very bad now, recalling that promise. He had not written every single day, not even every single week. Once he had gone to Scotland with Horatio, he had constantly been distracted, and when he had remembered the letters owed, he often hadn’t been able to find a reliable scribe. There were no writing frames at Loch Laggan, and the young ensigns and midwingmen had not been at all keen to be subjected to a long dictation. After the first few letters they were conspicuously absent whenever Temeraire had liberty and might have called for one. He could have asked Horatio, of course, but Horatio liked to play cards or go to the village when they were not engaged in aerial drills, and seemed to despise everything vaguely connected with pen and paper. Temeraire had unhappily thought of Iskierka's possessiveness, her unreasonable fussiness over Temeraire’s treatment of Horatio, and decided not to demand anything Horatio might not like to do.

Temeraire noticed a bright speck on the horizon, a welcome distraction from these gloomy thoughts. Growing larger, it turned out to be a balloon, roughly the shape of the paper lanterns people used in China, but much larger and with a basket strung underneath. He called out to Laetitius to inquire if these were a common sight, but the Prussian dragon either did not understand him, or was too disinterested to pay attention, for he simply changed his course to avoid it with a wide berth. Temeraire hovered for a short moment, torn between confusion and curiosity, then flew straight towards it.

He glanced back at Will who sat in the captain’s spot behind his shoulders wearing an absent and somewhat melancholy expression. Temeraire was not sure what was wrong with him. Little Will was certainly not given to air-sickness, Temeraire had taken care of that himself and taken him and Horatio flying as soon as Laurence would permit it, when the hatchlings had been very small indeed and not even walking. Will could have had a nicer coat, of course, but he had declined it when Temeraire had offered, so that was no fault of Temeraire’s.

“You know it is very nice to be travelling again, and seeing new things,” he said to Will, with enthusiasm intended to cheer him up, “That balloon is very pretty. I wonder whether we could hire some, when we are back in England, and I could entertain my friends with food served in the air – that would be quite something.” He brightened at the thought of Maximus and Lily, and perhaps even Perscitia, picking roast lambs out of a balloon while congratulating him on his good taste and ingenuity. But then of course, Lily was stationed somewhere in India, and Maximus and Kulingile at the Cape of Africa to guard the  trading port the British had been granted there. It had been years since they had all feasted together.

“Well, Horatio can decide about that,” Will said, stirring from his thoughts, “Although I have heard they are quite flammable, so you ought to be careful around Iskierka – pray watch where you are going!”

Temeraire looked forward again. He was on an awkward collision course with the balloon, and two men in the basket were waving at them urgently. He brought his wings in and dived some thirty yards out of the way, the air currents from his wings-tips carrying the flimsy craft off its course and occasioning a great degree of shouting from its pilots.

Laetitius had now drawn closer again, uselessly, and shouted something concerning some rule or regulation. “Oh, do keep quiet,” he grumbled, “it is no good telling me now, you should have said so earlier. Will, how long is it to the mountains?”

“I must defer to Captain Rattwitz on that matter, I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest notion where we are,” Will said unhappily, straightening up from where he had thrown himself flat against Temeraire’s neck during their plummet, and Temeraire heard Lieutenant Ingram cough.

“If you don’t mind me saying, I have taken the liberty of charting our speed and course, and I believe we should reach the Alps in less than a day now,” the lieutenant said.

“I am glad to hear it,” Temeraire said, trying to ignore the smug tone in Ingram’s voice. “And how long will it take to cross them? Oh, Will, do you remember the book we read about the General who went to fight the Romans, and crossed the Alps with his African dragons?”

“Hannibal, yes, of course,” Little Will said, looking a little less glum, “Although I hope we shall have an easier time of it, without blizzards, landslides and enemy armies to foil us.”

“You have been reading to him?” Lieutenant Ingram asked, bemused, “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

“Of course he has been reading to me,” Temeraire replied indignantly, in Will’s stead, “What else is one to do in winter, when parliament isn’t in session and it is too cold to go flying outside? Of course Admiral Laurence is always happy to read to me, too, but Little Will’s Latin is better. Which is no fault of Laurence’s, of course, he never went to school as long as Will did. Oh, and Will can read Chinese, too”, he said, indulging in a little boasting.

“For what good it will do”, Lieutanent Ingram sighed, clambering back down to the netting.

\--

The Alps came into view by sunset, a glow of orange and purple in the fading light of the day, and they reached the foothills before noon the day after. Captain Rattwitz and Laetitius took their leave, with poorly concealed relief, and Rattwitz pointed them in the direction of the passes across this part of the mountains. The valley he had indicated was initially wide and bowl-shaped, carved out of the landscape as if with an enormous spoon, but the ridges on either side soon soared high towards the clouds, shedding their covering of forest and then even the thin cover of grass and mosses, while the valley floor plunged into deep shadows.

Temeraire had been to the Alps before, chasing Ning’s egg, but that had been in winter, and the landscape looked quite different now, altogether more inviting. He spotted a few cows on the rich pastures of the lower mountain slopes, difficult to miss as they had bells hung around their necks. However, when he drew closer, a weatherbeaten herdsman burst forward with a gnarled walking staff and a rifle which he waved at them in a threatening fashion. Marlow and Jenkins brought their own weapons to their shoulders, but Lieutenant Ingram waved them off. “No, leave that! We aren’t here to pick a quarrel.”

“Will, shall we not try and ask him for the way?” Temeraire suggested after he had landed a little distance away from the jingling herd, still eyeing them with interest. Will gave this some thought, then nodded and clambered down with Lieutenant Ingram. After a short while, they returned, and Will shook his head.

“They seem very afraid of dragons," he told Temeraire, “I could not make out much of what he said, but he doesn’t look inclined to be helpful.”

“Can’t blame him. I’ve heard stories of the voracious appetites and cattle-thieving habits of the Alpine ferals,” Lieutenant Ingram said.

“That is not a very kind thing to say, if you haven’t ever met any of them,” Temeraire said, reproachfully, “Can we not buy some of his cows? Perhaps we can use them to get some of these ferals to come and speak to us”, he asked, a little sheepishly.

Will sighed. “You really want a cow to eat, don’t you?”

“Well,” Temeraire said, abashed, “They look very tasty, and it is not nice of people to be putting bells on them so one is constantly put in mind of them, but not allowed to have one.“

Will, fortunately, saw the logic in this. “It is your own funds after all, so if you would like me to buy one for you, I don’t see why not. Lieutenant Ingram, Mr Marlow, will you come along?”

Where words had not gotten them very far, the silver shillings spoke eloquently. The herdsman examined the coins carefully and finally pointed out three yearling bulls. By way of directions, he gestured towards an opening between two nearby peaks before he drove his ringing herd onwards. Dragging the hesitant, lowing animals back towards Temeraire, up the mountain slope, proved the most difficult part of the transaction. One of them pulled loose and nearly knocked Will over. Temeraire finally made short work of the problem by pouncing on the cattle from above and killing them with a slash of his talons.

They set down to rest so Temeraire could eat. He kept a watchful eye on his small crew. There being so few of them, he felt especially anxious to look after them well. The riflemen had stretched out on the grass, pulling their hats into their faces to nap. Isabella and little Teddy Hawkes were engaged in a game of dice, and Mr Laithwaite, the surgeon, had lit a pipe. Lieutenant Ingram was admonishing the harnessmaster over something to do with a worn-out buckle. Will had gone a little distance away to an outcrop and was looking around the scenery, wooded foothills and jagged snow-capped peaks. They were nothing like the crews he’d had with Laurence, during the War, not nearly so neat or drilled and not particularly well armed or supplied, but nevertheless, Temeraire was glad to have a crew again, and he told himself that as soon as they returned from China, he would fetch the rest of them back from Loch Laggan to have respectable number again.

He was just crunching through one of the leg bones, pondering whether Hannibal’s dragons had had similarly nice bullocks to eat on their crossing of the Alps – the book he and Little Will had read had unfortunately not contained any such details – when a piercing shriek echoed through the valley and a grey mottled dragon flung itself from the mountainside and onto the carcass of the second bullock.

Temeraire gave a startled small roar and quickly put out his talon before the intruder could snatch the food away. “No, you’re not having that!” he snapped, “Who are you?”

The little feral continued to tug ineffectually at the bullock’s hind leg, hissing and coiling up its body to appear bigger than he was. Temeraire looked on exasperated and undeceived. “Stop that, or I will have to fight you,” he said.

Will had turned around from his study of the landscape to hurry towards them. “Temeraire, wait! Can you… can you ask him for the way?” he panted.

Temeraire looked up. “What? – Oh, I see.” He looked at the little dragon, who was still dragging away in his stupid, frenzied fashion, as if he could not see that Temeraire was by far the larger beast. Temeraire sighed, and asked in Durzagh: “Who are you? Do you know these mountains?”

The little feral stopped for a moment and cocked his head sideways. Then, abruptly, he dug his jaws back into the carcass, yellow eyes fixed on Temeraire in an odd blend of challenge and plea.

“Oh, very well,” Temeraire said, exasperated, “I am not sure he can understand me, but in any case, I don’t think he will do anything for us unless we let him eat.” And, to the feral: “Don’t even think of flying away!”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Will said, “I am sure we will come in the way of more cows.”

Temeraire grudgingly withdrew his claw, and the little feral fell to immediately.

“Temeraire, I think he is a tatzelworm,” Will said, fascinated, and walked around the beast to look at it more closely, staying just about clear of the splutter of guts and gore. “I’ve seen a drawing of one in a bestiary, in Corpus Christi library. I didn’t know they still lived in the wild. Mr Hawkes, can you fetch me some paper and a pen?” When the runner brought it, he quickly sketched out the shape of the feral.

“I suppose he does look very much like a worm”, Temeraire said, a little jealous of all the excessive attention the small beast received. The dragon’s body had an odd snake-like conformation, with heavily armoured shoulders and wing-joints tapering to an almost diminutive pair of hind legs and a very long tail, which could not make for very easy flying even with its pair of strong, leathery wings. Temeraire could not see what Will found so very remarkable about it – overall, he thought it rather ugly.

“I must advise against this scheme of being guided by ferals,” Lieutenant Ingram muttered, stepping closer, “Their sneaking and thieving ways are well known. We will end up in some trap of theirs.”

“He is not thieving,” Temeraire said, bristling at Lieutenant Ingram always trying to find fault with his and Will’s plans. He looked at the little dragon with a slightly more gracious air. “I allowed him to have that cow. I could have chased him off, easily, so I do not see how he should get me into a trap. Besides, Admiral Laurence and me, and Tharkay too, have often had assistance from ferals. They are perfectly willing to provide it, as long as one sticks to one’s promises.”

The tatzelworm swallowed the bullock’s tail. It blinked its yellow eyes, sat up as straight as its distended belly allowed, and then opened its mouth again to speak in a piping voice, oddly accented.

“Well,” Temeraire said, when the feral had finished, “I am not sure I am able to make out all of it. He speaks very differently from Arkady and his fellows. But I think he is saying that his name is Urli, and that he lives in the next valley. He does know many good ways across the mountains, but he will only show them to us if we promise him another cow. He says we can set off straight away.”

“How long will it take?” Will asked.

Temeraire put the question to Urli. “About a day,” he translated, dubiously, “But I am not sure how many hours he means.”

“Very well, then,” Will said, “The light is growing short, but I suppose we can set down somewhere for the night.” He turned around to Mr Ingram. “Please pass the word for all to go aboard again. We _will_ be guided by the feral.”

“Ow,” Temeraire said, “Wait for me!” But the tatzelworm had already jumped aloft and swung himself up to a rocky ledge some twenty feet above, cackling at them as if laughing. Temeraire tried to ignore him, and reared up on his haunches when finally, all of his crew had gone aboard. “All lies well! Let us go!”

\--

Urli put on a remarkable speed, quite surpassing what Temeraire would have thought possible for so ungainly a dragon. The feral clearly knew his territory, making clever use of thermal drafts and little loopholes in the terrain that allowed them to stay as low as possible, where the air was more wholesome. He managed to surprise a pair of golden eagles at their circles, sending them both flapping away squalling, one of them dropping a marmot from it claws. Urli plunged and dived after the small carcass, picking it out of the air and swallowing it in one gulp. Temeraire rumbled disapprovingly. The acrobatic flying was impressive, but this could not be called good manners at all.

Soon they were climbing steadily to cross the first of the snow-capped ridges, the air growing thinner and all the crew yawning violently to free their ears. The next valley was deserted and wild. They swept past sheer rock faces and plunged into a dark ravine with a thundering stream at its floor, gouged deep into its rocky bed with boulders and even tree trunks strewn along its path. Temeraire had to bring his wings in closely and started to worry he might be running into a bottleneck too tight for his body, when the gorge went around a sharp bend and suddenly opened wide into the next valley, the stream falling away underneath them as a thin spraying waterfall, and nothing but free air and the golden rays of the evening sun around them. Isabella and Teddy Hawkes cheered and clapped. Temeraire felt a pat on his neck and turned his head to see Little Will grinning silently, his face bright with boyish delight. Temeraire’s heart swelled, and he leant in with even more of a will, following Urli’s next breakneck dive into the evening’s lengthening shadows. It was all he looked for in a day, and more.

When they finally set down for the night, Temeraire handed his last bullock over without too much regret. Urli devoured it with the same appetite as he had the first and then proceeded to ensconce himself in an impossibly small hole in the mountainside, the serpentine body curled tightly and his craggy armoured chest and shoulders merging into the rocks, only the yellow of his eyes glowing from the dark hole.

Temeraire ate an ibex the riflemen had managed to shoot down from one of the passes, less tender than the young bullock, but still wholesome enough. He was still toying with the curved pair of horns when Will came walking over to him from the little stream where he had filled his water bottle. “Well done,” Will said, still smiling as he climbed up Temeraire’s harness to take the logbook out of its pouch. “You were very fast today.”

Temeraire nosed at him affectionately. Little Will looked much improved. His pale cheeks had gained a lively colour in the alpine sun and his lips were chapped, his hair, golden and only a shade darker than Laurence’s had been, swept back from his forehead and drenched with water where he had splashed some of it in his face. If only, Temeraire thought, he'd had a proper coat.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Temeraire said, happily, “I’m sure I can go even faster, tomorrow, now that I’m getting used to the way Urli flies.” He stretched out his forearm. “Will you sit with me a little?”

Little Will froze, the smile suddenly dead on his lips. “No, no, Temeraire… I cannot sit there. That is father’s place. Anyways, I am very tired, and I think I will go to sleep. Just tell Lieutenant Ingram if you require anything, will you?” He turned away quickly, clutching the book.

Temeraire stared after him, confused and injured.

Now that Will had mentioned it, the crook of his arm indeed looked empty. _Father's place._ He could almost see Laurence sitting there again, younger in his bottle-green coat, the _Principia Mathematica_ open in his lap. Little more than a year ago, he had still been there, his hair grey now but the same kindness in his eyes that Temeraire had noticed instinctively when seeing him for the very first time, aboard the _Reliant_.

Temeraire tucked his arm in again and curled up tightly. He would always miss Laurence. Nobody would ever compare.

\--

Will awoke sharply to a tug on his shoulder. He sat up confused and groggy to stare at Lieutenant Ingram, who had the last watch.

“We’ve got company,” Ingram said, hushed. He pointed towards the jumbled pile of their baggage next to the remains of the fire. There were three ferals, one of Urli’s snake-like build and two of a more commonplace conformation with brown-striped hides, rummaging through the bundles with interest. One of them had managed to pry open a chest and was nosing through papers and folded clothes.

“They appeared from behind that mountain ridge there, and went straight for our things,” Ingram murmured, “I will wake the men.”

Before Will could say anything, he had gone to raise Marlow and Jenkins. Isabella sat up, too, wiping her eyes. “What is going on?” she asked, “Where is Urli?”

“Gone,” Ingram said, pointing to the empty hole where the tatzelworm had slept. “I bet he didn’t lose a minute to invite his fellows along, damn their thieving little souls. Mr Marlow, a shot to warn them off!”

“No, wait, Lieutenant,” Will tried to say, “We should try to speak-“

The small explosion of rifle-fire cracked in the half-light of dawn. Temeraire reared his head, confused. The ferals gave a startled shriek, and the next moment, they had taken off with a frantic flapping of wings, each seizing the first bundle in the way of their claws.

Temeraire gave a small startled roar and unfurled his wings.

Will just about managed to run over to him and catch a loop of the harness, pulling himself up, as Temeraire jumped aloft in pursuit. Fortunately Temeraire had slept in harness, not wanting to be derided by Urli for slowness in getting ready, but Will did not have the benefit of his carabiner-belt. “Temeraire!” he shouted, slowly clambering to the dragon’s shoulder, “What are you doing? Set down again! They will only get us lost, and your strength spent! It’s only the baggage-“

“No,” Temeraire said, viciously, “They’ve taken Laurence’s book!”

With a guilty start, Will remembered that he had bundled the logbook up with his other things the previous night, too embarrassed to go back to Temeraire to tuck it back in the harness after he had so obviously disappointed him.

“Go, then,” he murmured, too quietly for Temeraire to hear, and bent forward on the dragon’s neck.

The same speed he had delighted in so much in the previous day now worked against them. Will could feel Temeraire’s shoulders straining violently under the effort of keeping up with the agile Alpine ferals, his breath laboured in the thin air of the mountain ridge while the native dragons seemed unaffected. Temeraire roared at one of them. The tatzelworm squalled and plummeted, one of its wings broken. The chest it had been holding smashed into the rocks below, scattering its contents. The remaining two dragons split up and darted away to opposite sides.

“That one, there!” Will cried, pointing at the larger one of the two remaining beasts. He had recognised his own battered chest in its claws. The feral made straight for the northern side of the valley where a particularly sheer rock wall rose to a ragged peak.

Temeraire roared again. Warned by its fellow’s example, the little dragon quickly dropped out of the range of the Divine Wind so the force of the roar hit the rock wall instead, sheets of ice and rock breaking and tumbling down the slope The tatzelworm had to backwing frantically to prevent being hit by them, and Temeraire pounced on it from above, his talons groping for purchase on the wriggling body.

There was a shrill squall from above, a shadow descending and landing with a thud, sharp claws severing a harness-strap. Will was thrown backwards as the rest of the harness shifted several feet. For a sickening moment his hands lost their grip, but he managed to grasp one of the straps across Temeraire’s side and thrust his foot into the belly-netting, and the next moment, the harness drew taut again, pulling against the large metal-laced strap across the chest.

Hanging on to the straps with his heart in his throat, Will saw the second feral thrusting claws and teeth into Temeraire's wing-joint, black blood spurting. He screamed at the dragon, pulling himself up and slowly, doggedly back along Temeraire’s spine. There was no clear plan in his head, no weapon in his hand, just a blind rage to stop the feral injuring Temeraire. She lifted her head and fixed her orange eyes on him, confused. She was small for a dragon, yet her jaws were still the size of a respectable alligator. For one heartbeat, they stared at each other. Then Temeraire thrust his head around, grabbed the feral by the scruff of her neck and flung her away. Will almost lost his hold again as Temeraire gave the dragon in his claws a violent shake. Something dropped away into the dizzying void under them. Temeraire released his grip and the striped feral fell away, squalling in pain. Temeraire ignored him. He put his head down and dove after the chest, the impact with the ground driving his feet deep into a sheet of snow. Will was thrown off his back and slid downhill across a sheet of half-thawed ice ineffectually groping for purchase, finally coming to a hard stop against a rock.

The ferals circled away overhead and fled.

Will allowed himself to lie still for half a dozen racing heartbeats. Then he opened his eyes. The logbook lay a few feet away, precariously close to a pool of melt-water. He crawled towards it on all fours, still feeling too dizzy to stand, and snatched it up. The pounding rhythm of his heart was slowing down now, but his fingers still trembled as he turned it over. A deep talon-gash ran across the leather of the front cover, but otherwise, it seemed intact.

He turned around. The first rays of morning sun broke over the crest of the rocky wall now, snow crystals gleaming with a mocking beauty. Temeraire sat on the snow bleeding, roots of dark blood running into the snow. Will cried out when he saw it. He pushed to his feet and scrambled across the crusted snow, slipping and falling several times.

“Temeraire!” he cried, “What have these villainous beasts done to you?”

He wanted to put a hand on Temeraire’s neck, but to his shocked dismay, Temeraire jerked away. His black hide was trembling, whether with cold or anger, Will could not say.

“I am perfectly fine,” Temeraire hissed, “and they were not villains at all. Why, what should they have done? She only bit me because I attacked her mate. They all only came to look because they were curious, and we were crossing their territory after all. We might have given them a gift, and they would have left, or even shown us a good way like Urli did.”

Will swallowed, trying to think rationally. Looking at Temeraire’s blood in the snow, it was hard not to fall into a blind rage. “But to steal our luggage? There was no cause for that.”

“There was no cause frighten them so!” Temeraire retorted, “What on earth were they shooting at them for? Why did you not stop them, Will?” And then, low: “Laurence would never have let his men run wild like that.”

That blow hit home. Will felt the strength of righteous resentment drain away, leaving nothing but the familiar conscience of having failed, once again. He sat down on a rock. “I’m sorry, Temeraire, but I’m not Laurence.”

“Oh, stop that”, Temeraire snapped, “Nobody expects you to be Laurence, why, it would be perfectly ridiculous. You are your own person after all. But I do not see why you let people walk over you, and why you must feel sorry for yourself all the time. Now come, we must go back, and quick.”

\--

Mr Laithwaite inspected Temeraire’s wing joint, carefully probing the bite and extracting one gnarled tooth. “It’s an ugly flesh wound. I can’t see any torn sinews, but nevertheless, he ought to rest it. We cannot carry on at this speed, and he ought to take frequent breaks”, he said, flinging his tongs with the tooth into a bowl of bandaging.

“Oh, it is nothing!” Temeraire said, “I am perfectly well. Please let us go on, we shouldn’t lose any more time.”

Laithwaite looked up from his suturing. “If the wound festers, you will lose a great deal more time, but of course, that is entirely up to you,” he grumbled.

Will, who had sad nothing since Temeraire’s angry outburst, eyed the tooth. Torn between loathing and curiosity, he gingerly extracted it from the tongs, wiped it on his trousers and tucked it into the makeshift bundle with the few of his possessions that he and Temeraire had managed to salvage from the mountainside, in deafening silence except for the necessary pointing out of strewn items. “Temeraire”, he now said, quietly, “Don’t you think we should turn around? That first chest we lost had all the funds we took out at Rotterdam, and Hammond’s letters of recommendation.”

Temeraire stared at him. “Why, of course not! The letters would have been nice to have, but I am sure we will manage perfectly fine without them. It would have been a wretched shame if we had lost Laurence’s book, but now that we have it, we may carry on. Besides”, he said, levelly, “I don’t need letters of introduction. People know me anyways.”

“I think that might be part of the problem”, Lieutenant Ingram said.

“Pray have something to eat, first”, Will said, unhappily. He pointed at a small chamois, that morning’s quarry. Temeraire poked at it without much of an appetite, to Will’s mounting concern. He had just gingerly taken it up in his claws and was about to take a bite when a high, draconic cry came from above: “Cow!”

For one brief and terrifying moment, Will thought the ferals had come back to take revenge. The crew evidently had the same thought, for Marlow and Jenkins groped for their weapons, Lieutenant Ingram quickly cocking his pistol, all aiming at the sky.

Then Temeraire gave a small, indignant rumble. “No! This is my food, Volly. You should find your own. I have no cows, the ferals took them.”

“Stand down,” Ingram called, muffled, “It is a British dragon.”

It was indeed a small Greyling in courier harness. It landed a small distance away and waddled straight up to Temeraire to butt him on the shoulder. “Temrer!”, he cried, happily.

The little dragon’s captain climbed off his back. “Oh, I am very sorry, Captain,” he said, addressing Lieutenant Ingram. “He would not listen at all when he caught sight of your beast. My name is Captain Bertram James, and that awful little glutton over there is Volatilus.” Captain James offerred Ingram his gloved hand to shake, but when the Lieutenant only stared coldly, he lowered it again without skipping a beat, evidently used to a degree of contempt from heavyweight captains. He looked at Volatilus and Temeraire. “What, you two know each other?”

“Of course we do,” Temeraire said, “I am Temeraire, and I’ve known Volly since the year five. What has happened to Captain Langford James?”

“Oh, you know Uncle Langford? He retired six years ago, which is when I got Volly," Captain James said. “We do go and see him whenever we can fit Warwickshire into our schedule, don’t we, Volly?”

The little Greyling bobbed his head, munching on the chamois which Temeraire had left unguarded for a moment.

“Oh well, have it, then," Temeraire muttered, "It is very sinewy, anyways."

“The deuce, sorry”, Captain James said, alarmed and the next moment surprised, when Temeraire made no attempt to take his meal back, “That is prodigious kind of you, Temeraire, to share. But how do you come to be here, roaring across the mountains to be heard from thirty miles away? I thought this route was our little secret, and we were supposed to find you in Scotland.”

“You are looking for us?”, Temeraire asked, pricking up his ruff. “Have you got a message? My captain is right here, you may tell him!” He gave Will a nudge, sending him stumbling forward. “He is my Admiral Laurence’s son.”

“Ah”, Captain James said, for one moment looking confused between Will in his plain coat and mud-spattered trousers, and Lieutenant Ingram in his neat uniform, albeit with only one bar to mark his rank. “I am very sorry, this is an awkward blunder! Forgive me, Captain… Captain Horatio Laurence, I take it? I’ve got orders for Temeraire.”

He went through his bags, but before handing over the – sealed – letter, he informed them of its contents, without the slightest conscience of transgression: “You are required to go to Bombay, to rejoin Lily’s formation as part of the subcontinental division. They’ve had a couple of scrapes with those Marathi fellows trying to throw our traders out of the presidency, and I suppose another heavyweight should tip the scales nicely.”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, craning his neck eagerly, “Lily’s formation! That would be splendid! Open it, quickly!”

Captain James laughed. “The nearest covert you can use is in Trento. The Corps has an agreement with the Austrian fellows there. Although the transport we stopped on, on the way here, the _William of Orange_ , should be coming into Venice harbour any day now, and she is bound again for Suez immediately. If you hurry a little, you might catch her, rather than going all the way around the Adriatic, with the Croatian ferals prodding at you – although I suppose they should not give any grief to a beast your size. Anyways, I must be off, we are a little behind our schedule. Do you have any letters for me to take?”

Will shook his head, sadly. He had not anticipated any chance to send mail for a few days yet, and had nothing ready for Mr Tharkay or Horatio. “Captain James”, he said, blushing, “I am very sorry to ask, but do you happen to have a map of these parts which you could spare? We have… well… just lost a significant portion of our baggage.”

“Why, of course I do! Here, you can have it. Volly knows the mountains off by heart, anyways, we’ve been on this run for nearly three years now.” He handed them a well-worn map pulled out of a pouch on Volatilus’ harness, waving away Will’s offer of payment. “Why, no, not for that old rag. Thank you for letting Volly eat.” He touched his cap and pulled on his flying-goggles again.

Volly, who had managed only about half the chamois despite a valiant effort, looked a little wistful when Captain James climbed onto his back again, but then said, politely: “Thanks, Temrer!” and was gone in a flurry of grey wings.

\--

“Can you just leave me alone a minute?”, Will snarled at Isabella. He had walked a small distance away from all the crew to read the dispatch again, slowly, and agonize over what to do. Isabella alone had followed him.

“Uncle Will… Captain", she said. "Can't you see? This is our chance! We don’t need any letters from Hammond to board a transport if you are ordered to go to India anyways, and by the time we reach there, word will have gone out with the next courier-round that your current mission is China, not India. Fortunately it’s all the same way from here, anyways.”

“You forget a tiny detail”, Will said, heatedly, “Which is that these orders are for Horatio, not me.” 

“How does that make any difference?” Isabella asked.

“If I tell them I am not Horatio, but have somehow come into possession of his dragon without orders to support me, they may insist we wait until it has all been cleared up – which likely means waiting until Volly or another courier comes back from England.”

“Why, don’t be so thick. Of course you don’t need to tell them you aren’t Horatio. Nobody in the subcontinental division has ever seen him or Iskierka, and even if someone has a vague recollection, you look similar enough – you are twins, after all.”

“You suggest I should posture as my brother? Isabella, it is ridiculous. I know next to nothing about the ways of the Corps, whereas Horatio has ten years and more on the wing – anyone who has so much as heard of him would find me out immediately, and I shall ruin our family’s name more thoroughly than Horatio has done, either by making him look a fool, or myself a liar and impostor.”

“Well, with regards to being a captain, I agree it is high time you tried a little harder. Temeraire wishes for nothing more, haven’t you noticed? – Oh, what is that?” she said, pointing to his makeshift bundle with his salvaged belongings, slung over Will’s shoulder.

Will moved to pull it closed, but he was too late. Isabella had already snatched the tell-tale corner of bottle-green broadcloth hanging out from one side, and the next moment, she had pulled out Horatio’s flying-coat.

“Perfect,” she said, with satisfaction, “Very sensible of the captain to give that to you. You ought to put it on now.”

Will thought darkly that if he had ever entertained the idea of buying her chocolate, she had forfeited it now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Temeraire & Co are gently but firmly escorted out of Prussia. They enlist the help of a feral dragon to show them the way across the Alps. A misunderstanding between the crew and a group of ferals escalates and results in the loss of much of their baggage, including Hammond’s letters of recommendation. A British courier is surprised to find them on the way to India already, because as per his letters, Temeraire and Horatio have been assigned to the Corps’ subcontinental division under the command of Admiral Harcourt. Isabella suggests that in the interest of saving time, they use the orders to board a Corps transport across the Mediterranean instead of waiting for fresh letters and permits. Will grudgingly agrees to pass himself off as his aviator brother, although he doubts anyone will believe it long enough to work. _

Temeraire was bent on a headlong push for the coast, in spite of the wound he had taken in the Alps. The Austrians and Italians were more indifferent to his passage than the Prussians had been, and nobody intercepted them or demanded passports. It therefore fell to Will to appeal to Temeraire’s rational senses, and Mr Laithwaite to contribute grim visions of spreading infection and amputated wings, to persuade him to slow down. Temeraire was unhappy, but by way of compromise, they put in a stop every three hours, rigidly enforced by Mr Laithwaite.

Will had never gone on a tour of the continent, as his cousins and many other young men of his station had done; not for lack of interest, but because he had felt certain his family would have thought it an idle, wasteful sort of thing to go hopscotching around Europe as a tourist. Their stops in the Italian plains provided a glimpse of what he had missed. He visited a handful of churches and a monastery with beautifully painted murals, and one afternoon they found a ruined Roman villa with a splendid mosaic floor, half overgrown by shrubs.

Except for those ruins entirely open to the elements, the buildings were too small to permit Temeraire to accompany him, but Will made a point of taking Isabella and Teddy Hawkes along so they would not miss the opportunity for their personal education. Both of them bore it with a resigned patience and looked blank when he quizzed them on their knowledge of classical history. His descriptions of Julius Caesar’s aerial tactics managed to kindle a transient show of interest, but they did not care much for architecture, and didn’t see why they ought to remember one type of column was called Ionic and the other Corinthian. Isabella professed herself surprised to learn that Julius Caesar and Elizabeth I had not been contemporaries, deriving most of her knowledge of both periods from a Shakespearean play she had seen put on at a covert. Will resolved to have a word with Horatio about his young gentlemen’s education, once they were back in England, steeling himself for the likely outbreak of mirth on his brother's side.

Returning from one of their trips, Will found Temeraire wide awake, his ruff back against his neck, talking with Lieutenant Ingram.

“I wonder what he is about,” Isabella said, suspiciously.

Will did not reply, but he found himself involuntarily quickening his pace to hurry up the small cypress-studded hill on which they had set down to rest.

“Temeraire, is anything the matter? Is the wound giving you pain?” he asked, looking around for Mr Laithwaite.

“No, I am perfectly well,” Temeraire said, surprisingly viciously, “These stops are very tiresome and vexing, when we might miss our transport. We will fly on straight away.” He said this with finality, and snatched Will up with a possessive air to put him, pell-mell, back in the captain’s seat at the base of his neck. Only then did he permit the rest of his crew to come aboard. Lieutenant Ingram climbed on last, wearing a resigned expression. Mr Laithwaite tried to protest, but Temeraire gave a low and warning rumble. “It is a very silly to suggest that I should be in any danger from that _scratch_. Besides, all this stopping and going is not doing any good. My shoulder is always much stiffer afterwards than before.”

Will, while anxious for Temeraire’s health, did not feel justified in crossing his wishes again, and nodded. “It is fine, Temeraire,” he said, stroking the dragon’s neck, “Just sing out when you need another break.”

He had little cause to regret Temeraire’s haste, for after another few hours steady on the wing, they reached Venice.

Will almost cried out with joy to see the city, more beautiful than any of his books had been able to describe it, a dream in gilded marble rising from the turquoise water of the summery lagoon. Temeraire, too, was quite taken with it. He flew a few wide circles and Will named him the buildings he recognised – the Doge’s Palace, Saint Mark’s Basilica with its bell tower, the ornate curve of Rialto bridge. The streets and canals were too narrow to permit Temeraire to land, so they set down on the sandy spit of land dividing the lagoon from the sea. Mr Ingram went to ask some of the local fishermen about the _William of Orange_ – a dragon transport could not have gone unnoticed – and returned to inform them that she had not yet been sighted near the port.

Will decided to take the chance to visit Venice. He left Temeraire behind with two massive fresh-caught tunnies from the fishermen, having secretly traded his pocket-watch for their day’s catch when he saw Temeraire eyeing the fish hungrily, and a promise to furnish a full description of all the wonders he should encounter in the city. He took the young crew members with him, by now quite determined to drum some general knowledge into their heads.

For once, no great resistance was offered. Teddy Hawkes and Isabella joined him eagerly, although their enthusiasm was not so much for the history or architecture. Pointing out the details of the ornately carved front of a palazzo, Will realised he was speaking to thin air, and looking around found his companions plastered to a shop window a few steps away, their attention entirely absorbed by a display of smallarms and daggers. They were pointing at an old-fashioned pistol, very finely worked with a pommel of dark wood inlaid with silver. Stepping closer, he noticed what had drawn their appreciation: the fine silver lines coalesced into the shape of a dragon’s body: the cock holding the flint, ready to strike the frizzen, fashioned into the shape of a scowling dragon head. It looked beautiful and deadly.

“You should have it, Captain, Sir,” Teddy Hawkes piped, “We could teach you how to shoot!”

He broke off and looked a little scared, ducking his head as if he expected to be cuffed for the suggestion that Will could not handle a weapon. Will shook his head, suppressing a smile. “We don’t have money to spend,” he said, “Come, let us walk on, there is more to see,” but a bell chimed to announce Isabella had already entered the shop. Hawkes looked at him for one instant, torn, then he quickly dashed after her.

Will followed them inside, frowning, with no intention other than to extricate them and move on. “Please pardon us, Sir,” he said to the shopkeeper behind his till, who was eyeing the children ungraciously as they went around his display. “Gentlemen, we need to go.”

The shopkeeper’s indignant expression changed entirely at the sight of Horatio’s uniform-coat, which Will had put on that morning, half hoping for and half dreading their rendezvous with the _William of Orange_.

“Ah, _Capitano_! Please, do stay and have a look around” he cried, “May I show you some of our wares?”

“That is very kind, but I am afraid we don’t have time,” Will said, and sharply: “Isabella!” where she had lifted a finger to touch the hilt of the black-and-silver pistol from the shop window.

“I must compliment your young companion’s taste,” the shopkeeper remarked, “An exceptional piece. Made for a _Granduca di Toscana_ ’s third son, who served in the Austrian Aerial Corps.”

“And he… died?” Teddy Hawkes asked, wide-eyed. “In battle?”

“Shh,” Isabella said, “Probably gambled it away.”

The merchant ignored them. He took the pistol out of the window and showed it to Will, pointing out the beautiful craftsmanship and the finely honed firing mechanism. “ _Ovviamente_ , if you want to have it altered to a more modern ignition, it can easily be accomplished,” he said, putting the pistol into Will’s half-resisting hands, “But it is perfectly serviceable as it is.”

“Indeed,” Will muttered. He was no especial connoisseur of firearms, and had indeed endured his father’s lessons on how to load and fire a pistol with the greatest impatience, for taking up time that could be better spent reading books or collecting stones. But even to his eye, this weapon looked remarkable, with the black burnished pommel reminding him of Temeraire’s sleek hide. He suddenly thought that it would make a handsome present for his brother, perhaps for their joint twenty-fifth birthday. “How much is it?” he asked boldly.

Sobered by the answer, he put it back down on the till. “Thank you, Sir," he said, “But we really must be gone.” He nodded at Isabella and Hawkes, who looked disappointed.

“Oh, but Captain,” the shopkeeper said, hurriedly, “If this particular one is not to your taste, perhaps one of these will do.” He opened a drawer and presented them with a succession of four modestly priced pistols, all of them newly-made, plain and quite unremarkable except for the more modern ignition, superior to the old flintlock.

There was nothing whatsoever wrong with them, but in their sober utility they powerfully illustrated all that was exceptional about the first. It was a very transparent salesman’s tactic, Will thought, but an effective one. He bit his lip. “Thank you,” he said again, striving hard to sound decided, “The first one you have shown us is quite out of the ordinary, but I cannot afford any such expense at the moment. Good day, Sir, I thank you for your trouble.”

The door handle already in his hand, Isabella tugged on his sleeve.

“Please, take these, if you will?” Very earnestly, she pulled out a knotted handkerchief and untied it to reveal a small handful of coins. “It’s eight shillings and sixpence. I saved them.”

“Oh,” Teddy Hawkes said, and rummaging through his pockets produced a button, a piece of string, a sticky sweet wrapped in paper, and finally a few copper coins, which he held out earnestly. “You can have mine too, Captain Laurence! I’m sure Temeraire would like you to have that pistol, very much, with that dragon on it an' all!”

Will looked at their offerings a little blankly, taken aback.

“Laurence?” the shopkeeper interrupted, “Laurence of Temeraire?”

“Yes!” Teddy Hawkes piped before Will could try to silence him, “You see, Sir, we were off in such a hurry, and the Captain does not even have a pistol of his own.”

The shopkeeper looked quite overcome. “ _Capitano_!” he cried, “If only I had known!” and, seizing Will by the arm, took him to the outside of the shop to point to an empty alcove above the door. “The villainous Napoleon had all the lions struck down from our houses and piazzas, and the Horses of Saint Marco sent to Paris, to shame our proud city!”

The Venetian proceeded to list a great number of other insults inflicted by the French conquerors, a grudge which, over thirty years past, still seemed to be held passionately. He affirmed his admiration for “ _Temeraire_ _il Corragioso_ ” and the famous “ _Capitano Lorenzo_ ”, and concluded by leading Will back into his shop and handing him the pistol as a gift for Temeraire. “I now see it has been waiting for you all along.”

Will tried to protest in vain that it was his father the man had heard about, not him, and that he was in no way deserving. He finally managed to press two of Horatio‘s gold buttons on the man and still felt guilty carrying the pistol away. Isabella and Teddy Hawkes, on the other hand, were immensely satisfied. On their way back, they disputed whose duty it would be to watch over and clean the precious weapon, the position of ensign presently vacant among their ranks. Will finally broke in to suggest they could spend an hour a day over their books and sums, and in return, take turns with the pistol, and he would submit to their lessons in marksmanship. They promised solemnly, and Will stifled a laugh at their earnest faces. Temeraire’s likely pleasure on being given further proof of his eminence, and being called “Il Corragioso”, almost served to reconcile him to the situation. However, walking along the lively canals while perfect strangers cleared a path for him on account of his military coat, he quietly reflected that if he really were Horatio, it would be no small relief to be posted to India, and have an opportunity to make a name for himself in a place where nobody had heard of their father - although of course, no distance would ever diminish Temeraire‘s memories and the inescapable, damning comparison.

They spent another hour touring the city, Isabella and Teddy Hawkes now making such zealous efforts to parrot Will’s explanations that he felt embarrassed all over again. He sacrificed another gold button to buy a Latin copy of the _Odyssey_ for Temeraire, with only a slight pang of consciousness for ruining Horatio’s coat – Temeraire would be glad of some distraction, on a sea-voyage. With Isabella’s small change, they bought a bracelet of Venetian glass for Mrs Walker, Will’s old wet-nurse who had also looked after Isabella after she had been brought to live at Castleton Hall, and who was well liked by all her former charges.

They were crossing back across the Piazza San Marco, talking animatedly, when a black shadow swept past overhead.

The next moment, Temeraire flung himself down at the crowded square, scattering people, fruit-baskets and pigeons as he called: “Will, Will, where are you? We must go at once!”

He whipped his head about wildly, his ruff flat against his neck, and was about to take off again to continue his search elsewhere when they finally managed to catch his attention, running out into the widening circle of empty space that had opened around the dragon.

“Oh, I am so glad I have found you! We must go, quickly!” Temeraire cried, “The transport has already left Venice! She has left without us! I’ve seen her!”

“But Temeraire… didn’t we agree you should be resting?" Will said, confused, "And why, I thought… didn’t Lieutenant Ingram say…”

He did not get any further, for Temeraire had snatched them up in his foreclaws and jumped aloft.

\--

During the brief flight back to the sandy strip, they were able to piece together a little more of what had happened: Temeraire had, in defiance of the surgeon, gone on another flight across the city to get a better look. But once high aloft, he had noticed a small speck on the horizon, so he had flown out to sea to investigate, thinking it might be the _William of Orange_ coming into port. And indeed the shape of the vessel was quite unmistakably a dragon transport – but as he had tried to fly towards her, it had become clear that she was moving away from him, outbound under a full spread of sail.

“But how is it possible?” Will asked, “Lieutenant Ingram spoke to the fishermen. How should they have missed so very large a ship? And are you sure it was her, after all?”

“How indeed,” Isabella hissed, “Why, he has lied to us.”

Will could barely credit this monstrous suspicion. However, landing to find Temeraire’s small crew huddled together on the beach in a great confusion, with only Ingram a little distant staring at the horizon, it was hard not to suspect something was off.

“Lieutenant,” Will said as soon as Temeraire had set him down, “Is there any explanation? Has there been a mistake?”

He was still too confused to put any particular sharpness into his voice, but Ingram locked his arms, and did not reply.

“Temeraire has sighted the ship, eastbound from here," Mr Laithwaite broke in, angrily, although he seemed torn between directing his furious looks at Ingram and at Temeraire, for defying his warnings, “I told him not to fly, you can be sure of that! And what good it is to do us now, I don’t know. He can’t stretch himself to go flying after the ship, or he shall rip all the wound open again!”

“Those men over there said a transport left yesterday,” Mr Thorne, the harnessmaster's mate, said in his quiet way, nodding towards some of the fishermen mending their nets, “If we have their meaning correctly. You don’t happen to speak Italian, Sir?”

Will shook his head, numbed. He took a moment to comprehend the full meaning of this intelligence. Missing the transport meant a devastating loss of time for their already tenuous schedule. It had been almost two weeks since they had left England. He could not set himself up as a great navigator, but from the calculations he had made with the help of Captain James’ map, a sea-passage would easily gain them four days, as opposed to a circuitous flight along the Adriatic coast, and convey the added benefit of giving Temeraire a chance to rest his shoulder. The present situation presented him with the awful choice between pressing on, as Temeraire clearly preferred, with the risk of causing real harm, or else letting her go, and accepting their bid for a hundred days had failed before the journey had even properly begun. And all of it had not been caused by ill winds or any external force, but by the treachery of one of their own. He cursed himself for having yielded to the lures of the city, willingly swallowing Ingram’s lie when it had allowed him to go sightseeing, instead of investigating for himself.

When Will turned to face Mr Ingram again, he was almost trembling with anger. “Sir, will you be so kind as to accompany me,” he snapped, his voice vicious in a way he had never used before – a voice he hadn’t known to possess, himself.

Ingram’s eyes were fixed on the new pistol in Will’s hand, the icy look on his face tantamount to a confession of guilt. His hand jerked to his own weapon, but he checked himself. “There is no dueling in the Corps,” he said.

“I’m not in the Corps,” Will said, flatly.

“You should go after the transport,” Lieutenant Ingram said, waving an arm towards the sea.

This was too much. Will walked straight up to him, seized him by the collar, and pushed him into the crisscross of fishing-nets strung out behind them on frames to dry. They were roughly the same height, with Will not nearly as strongly built or hardened by years of active duty, yet Ingram was initially too taken aback to offer any resistance.

Temeraire furrowed the ground with his claws and growled, but Will shouted “Temeraire, you stay there!” and the dragon sat back on his haunches, eyeing the spider-web of nets unhappily.

Ingram jerked free. They stood staring at each other.

“What do you mean by this scheming?” Will snarled, “At least Lieutenant Rankin had the gall to make his insults openly, and answer a challenge. I now see there is no more need to ask who even denounced the argument as a duel, to the admiralty. In the mountains, was that your doing, also?”

Lieutenant Ingram stood defiantly, but he did not cry out against the accusation. “A remarkable dragon like Temeraire ought not be subjected to a young hotspur, nor an incompetent bluestocking,” he said, calmly as if he were stating a fact.

Will gasped. “A remarkable dragon like Temeraire ought not be subjected to treachery at the hands of those he should be able to trust.”

Ingram snorted. “This whole mission is sheer lunacy, and the sooner he comes around to seeing it, the better. If you cannot face up to him and tell him the truth, I see it my duty to do so, on behalf of Admiral Laurence. So far, he has been quite unwilling to listen, but without that ship to drag things out and foster false hopes, it would have been possible to open his eyes, and take him back to England where he belongs, and-“

“Leave my father out of this,” Will broke in, incensed by the mention of Laurence’s name, “You call it your duty to shame Temeraire by setting him up to fail, and presenting yourself as his saviour, back in England? As if he needed saving – from me? God, you really must be desperate to see me as a threat! Have you so little confidence in your own abilities? If you had served faithfully, and made Temeraire your first concern as any half-decent Corps man would have done, I would have been your greatest advocate should they not allow my brother back – I have no wish to impose myself on Temeraire or any of you, no matter what you all seem to suspect! But this?” He flung the Venetian pistol at Ingram’s feet. “By God, a moment ago I had a mind to run you through, and if it was the last thing I did, but now I see I really ought to take pity!”

“It is me who is taking pity on you, damned fool,” Lieutenant retorted, now with similar heat, “This whole wager is a childish idiocy only dragons could come up with, but taking Temeraire to China is even worse! Those damned Chinamen are going to try and keep him for themselves, don’t you see, with his Captain taken from him and their Emperor without a beast? They would dangle a hundred bribes before his eyes, and before you know it, you would be returning with no dragon at all, never mind that mongrel beast we’re supposedly after!”

“We have our orders, Lieutenant," Will said, slowly, “And I don’t think it is your place to question them.”

“I suggest I go away, then,” Lieutenant Ingram said. “No vow binds me to serve you, no matter if you are wearing borrowed bars. I wish you luck at your play-acting.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “Please do, and I shall report you a deserter, and I swear I won’t leave a stone unturned to see you stripped of your rank and make sure you never get an egg of your own. No dragon ought to be subjected to this sort of vile treachery.”

Ingram’s eyes widened in alarm, and Will belatedly realized that, by grace of his mother’s connections, this threat probably did carry some degree of force. Of course Ingram could not know that any complaint made by Little Will against a grown aviator would likely only have drawn laughter from Admiral Roland.

“Or perhaps you might stay and repair your ways,” he continued, flatly. Even making the offer left an ugly taste, but what choice was there. “You might indeed do your duty and be loyal to your dragon, even if you cannot be loyal to me. You know your skills and experience cannot easily be spared.”

“Will!” Temeraire called out again, plaintively, “Please come out! We haven’t a moment to lose. She is running away from us!” He thrust his nose into the fishing nets and snorted, annoyed, when they started to tangle around his face.

“Yes, my dear, I am coming,” Will said.

Lieutenant Ingram still stood unmoving, staring at him. Will nodded, taking his silence as the answer he required. “Goodbye and good luck to you, Sir, and I hope we shan’t meet again,” he said. He wanted to pick up the pistol, but that moment, Ingram finally spoke.

“No,” he said, stiffly, “Allow me…”

Will looked up to see the muscles around Ingram’s square jaw and temples working. It was clear he had not expected any offer of clemency, that he had staked everything on one card and was unsure how to proceed now. But then he bent low to pick up the pistol and hand it to Will.

“Captain.”

\--

“She’s still so far away," Isabella said gloomily, looking through the glass when it was her turn, “Should we not go closer to the coast, rather than further into open sea?”

“Quite,” Mr Laithwaite said, “I cannot recommend him staying aloft for anything over three hours, especially in this heat, and,” he glanced at his watch, “we have been going for three and a half already.”

Will did not reply, instead preferring to look straight ahead. The Mediterranean sun was biting even in the late afternoon, Temeraire’s black scales searing to the touch and now marbled with a thin crust of salt where he had dipped down into the waves to cool off, an hour ago. Under cover of pretending to look for his water-flask, Will gave another surreptitious glance at the scrap of paper with the calculation he and Temeraire had made, copied from the scratched-out diagram in the sand of the lagoon, to take account of the time the transport had supposedly set off, Temeraire’s estimate of her bearing and speed, and their own pace. He worked it over in his head again, but he could not find a mistake: Temeraire’s algebra superior to his own, the dragon had even proposed a clever trigonometric calculation to factor in the easterly wind. They should catch her within three or four hours, unless she were going much faster than they had supposed, or the currents were markedly different, and on that ground he had agreed with Temeraire that they should attempt the chase.

“We must turn westward, and get closer to the coast,” Lieutenant Ingram too insisted, when the sun started to sink below the horizon an hour later, and the _William of Orange_ still small enough to be blotted out behind a raised palm, “We cannot risk Temeraire tiring himself out or getting lost in the dark, across open sea. There is something wrong in that calculation, or perhaps she has changed her bearing. Please, do listen, Captain. I am not-“

“A dragon-transport of that size doesn’t just change course on a whim,” Will said curtly, although he privately doubted himself. But he would not give in to Ingram, not now. “Temeraire!” he called, “Can you go lower, so we can tally our speed?”

Temeraire nodded. They threw the log overboard. Ingram’s lips moved soundlessly, counting, as the knots ran through his fingers. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen knots,” Will murmured, “I can’t understand…”

“Will,” Temeraire said, “Don’t you think it is odd how she has taken in her sails, and there is barely any wind, but she is still going so fast?”

Will reached for the glass again to look, squinting in the half-light of dusk for several minutes. Indeed, her studding sails were already gone, the gallants and topsails being reefed, but she did not seem to be slowing at all. Only then did he notice the dark wisps of smoke trailing behind her. They had been visible for quite a distance, but he had supposed them to be the result of her galley-fires. Looking at them now, he felt oddly reminded of the steamer tugging the _Téméraire_ , near Margate.

“Mr Ingram,” he asked the lieutenant, “Do you suppose there is any chance… is it possible she is going under steam?”

For an instance, Ingram looked genuinely confused, but then he nodded, slowly. “I suppose… I haven’t served in the Med before, but I know they have built a steamer transport for the India run. Although what she should be doing here, I haven’t the least notion.”

“How fast do they go?” Will asked.

“I haven’t any personal experience of them, but I have heard it bandied about that they can make up to twelve knots.”

Will groaned. They had placed the ship’s speed at six or eight knots at the most, based on Temeraire’s extensive experience aboard dragon transports, usually slow lumbering craft.

“Temeraire!” he called, “Pray let us turn off to the shore.”

“But why?” Temeraire demanded, indignantly, and when Will had relayed the new intelligence about the vessel’s likely speed, he hissed as if personally offended. He rapidly worked the numbers in his head, concluding: “Why, but that would mean we should take six hours to catch her, not three! Oh, she has no business cheating us so! Unless…” His drooping head went up, lining up sleekly with the shoulders, “Unless I go faster, of course.”

“No, you may not! … Temeraire!”

However, pleased by the simplicity of this solution, Temeraire leant in with all the force of indignation, paying no heed to Mr Laithwaite’s cry of protest. Will left off further attempts to hold him back. Something about Temeraire’s poise and violent wing-beats told him there was no point even attempting it, despite the worrying rasp of the dragon’s breath in the great chest underneath them. The waves rushing past seemed a molten flood of fire in the low rays of the fading sun, lending a touch of unreality, and Will felt as if he were looking on from above, vaguely aware of the absurdity of it: a race between dragon and steam ship, sinew and wing against tons of steel. But the great white-painted hull of the transport grew larger more quickly now, and after another half-hour grimly clocked by Mr Laithwaite, Will could read the great painted letters on her stern without the aid of the glass – the _William of Orange_ without the shadow of a doubt. Temeraire’s wing-strokes were faltering now, his breath coming in labored gulps, but he put on one last desperate burst of speed, and dove.

Will realized too late what they were: A black heavyweight dragon, without flags or insignia, darting down at the ship from a dark sky like some ambushing stormcloud. There were shouts going up and an instant later a spatter of rifle-shot, feebly, the crew evidently unprepared to meet any semblance of attack after a quiet day’s travel in peacetime and neutral waters. But there were two dragons rearing from the deck, Yellow Reapers in harness, and one of them jumped aloft quickly to meet them, shrieking out a challenge.

Isabella had the presence of mind to tear open one of their few bundles saved from the wreckage in the Alps, the one Will had found the most useless of them all, and four yards of pearly-white Brussels lace streamed out from Temeraire’s back, thrown back against the dragon’s body as an odd flag of truce.

The dragon who had beaten up to meet them slowed his approach, turning off to one side to look at them, suspiciously. Will heard his captain call to his crew to hold fire, the men on the Reaper’s back eyeing their makeshift flag in evident confusion.

“It is me!” Temeraire called out to them, “Do you not recognise me?”

The other dragon blinked, then he turned off sharply, calling back to the battalion of marines spilling out onto the deck underneath them: “Don’t worry at all, it is Temeraire!”

\--

Will fell from Temeraire’s back more than climbing and stretched himself out on the dragon-deck. The planks still radiated the day’s heat, and as the tension of the pursuit fell away from him, he felt a reckless sort of laughter bubbling up in his throat.

He stifled it when someone stepped up beside him, a lantern held up in the dusk, and a moment later he looked into the frowning face of a Navy officer, tall and lanky, with flaming red hair, bright green eyes and a single golden epaulette upon his left shoulder.

“What do you think you are about?” the man asked, bluntly. A small knot of marines had followed him, weapons at the ready, but he waved them away. They retreated a few steps down the stairs that led up to the dragon-deck and remained there, casting distrustful looks.

“I beg your pardon for intruding so uninvited,” Will said, sitting up, “My name is Wi- … Captain Horatio Laurence, of Temeraire. We are for Bombay, and I am sorry we almost missed the ship.”

“First Lieutenant Thomas Riley, pleased to make your acquaintance,” the other man said, stiffly, “Sir, I cannot recall any orders to take a heavyweight. If so, we should have stocked up a good deal more, in Italy.”

Will pushed himself to stand and, reaching inside his coat, produced the letter Captain James had given them. “These are our orders, signed by Admiral Harcourt. We happened to be in the area, so we thought it would be wiser not to sit and wait, given the situation in India… I am sure Temeraire can fish for himself, once he has rested a little, and needn’t be a burden on your stores.”

He tried very hard to sound self-assured about it, _the situation in India_ , as if he knew what he was talking about. He half expected Lieutenant Riley to start laughing and pronounce him the liar he was.

But Riley only glanced at Horatio’s orders, raising an eyebrow. “Admiral Harcourt, indeed.” He sighed. “Well, so be it, then. You may pick one of the free cabins at the fore for yourself, they are all empty save two. You’ve missed dinner, but if you send one of your boys along when you have settled in, we can send something up. Your crew may be quartered next to the galleys, so they can be close to the dragon. Why have you got so few?”

Will stared back. “So few what?”

“Crew.”

“Oh, I see… I am newly made captain, so I haven’t had a chance to pick good men yet. I should be glad for any recommendations,” he added.

Riley looked at him askance. “I don’t suppose you want sailors?”

“No, of course not," Will blurted, keenly aware of the hole he had dug for himself, “I mean, if you have come across any likely hands, in your role on a dragon transport.”

“You have an odd sense of humour,” Riley laughed, “Why, I’ve never heard an aviator ask a sailor for advice on his crew. I must be off, there seems to be some confusion over the watches,” he said, pointing to a small commotion that had broken out near the helm. “I suppose you’ve been on a transport before, and know your way around? Just make sure your young ones know what’s out of bounds, I don’t want to be picking your runners out of the tops.”

“Of course,” Will said.

Riley nodded and took his leave. Will checked that Temeraire was settled and comfortable with his harness taken off, and then was forced to walk off in a display of confidence for the benefit of the Marines, despite being utterly unsure of his bearings. He only stopped when he almost stumbled down a hatchway, the annoyed faces of a handful of sailors at a dice-game staring up at him. He nodded to them as jovially as he could manage and turned around to try a different corner of the ship. Ten minutes later he was still thoroughly lost, and almost grateful when Lieutenant Ingram caught up with him to shepherd him to the aviator’s cabins, handing him a candle-stick.

“Thank you. The children and crew,” Will asked, too tired and weary to mind his pride, “have they found a berth?”

Ingram nodded. “The quarters near the galleys are more than enough, as there are only two other crews on board. They can have three hammocks to one man if they ike. But what was more, that Riley fellow did not yelp at all when I asked for another cabin next to ours for midwingman Dlamini – he simply said we should do as we pleased, and not at all unkindly. I have never encountered so little obstruction from one of those Navy fellows, even those aboard transports. It is quite remarkable.”

Will nodded, grateful that Ingram had thought of making the arrangement. At least he did not have to worry about Isabella sleeping in an open berth deck, attracting unsolicited attention. He closed the door of his surprisingly spacious if somewhat spartan cabin, took off his coat and boots and put out the candle. He almost collapsed into the hammock, dead tired, but the damnable thing immediately turned on itself and he fell out the other side, landing on the floor with a thud. Cursing and groping in the dark, he steadied the cot and tried a second time, this time managing to stay inside lying ramrod-stiff and uncomfortable, not daring to move while the hammock swayed gently to and fro with the ship’s roll. He pushed away the thought of what his father would have made of him – defeated by a hammock – but it was no use, there could be no question of sleep. At the next toll of the bell, he got up, painstakingly stepping out rather than falling. He went up to the dragon deck barefoot,  picking his way between the sleeping Reapers. Temeraire slid open an eye and mumbled a drowsy greeting, uncurling a little to let him come close. The Mediterranean night was pleasantly warm, a full star-studded sky above them, and with the green coat bundled up under his head, the comforting swell of Temeraire’s breath blotting out the low drone of the coal-fired paddle wheel, Will soon fell into a deep and fitful sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Team Temeraire travel on through Italy. In Venice, Will and the younger crew members indulge in sightseeing and shopping instead of looking up the shipping schedules, which backfires when Lieutenant Ingram claims their intended transport has not come into harbour yet. By chance, Temeraire spots the ship outbound, having left port long ago. Lt Ingram admits to lying, ostensibly to prevent Temeraire going on a pointless mission. Will is provoked into asserting some authority, and together with Temeraire decides to risk a run for the transport across the open sea._

The next morning Temeraire’s shoulder was hot to the touch, the scales raised where the flesh had swollen up around the bite.

“There you’ve got it,” Laithwaite said, grimly pleased, when Will had hurried to fetch him, “I told you he should have rested it.”

Will stroked Temeraire’s neck, too shaken to talk back at the man, and watched with mounting concern as Laithwaite opened his case of instruments. Temeraire blinked at the intimidating display and protested, but Laithwaite stayed firm, proclaiming if he wasn’t allowed to go about his work, they could jolly well find a different surgeon. Temeraire put his head down in glum submission and let Laithwaite and an unhappy Teddy Hawkes, drafted into the role of assistant, scale his back. Little Will had resolved to stay calm and composed by Temeraire’s head, but he almost cried out in sympathetic pain when the surgeon drove the knife in deep and he felt a sharp shudder running through Temeraire’s body. Then the blade was withdrawn, and a bucketful of pus came surging out.

One of the sailors in the rigging above them tutted disapprovingly and called out to his fellow a little higher up: “Now look at that mess right ‘ere – an’after we scrubbed all of it down only yesterday!” tailing off into mutterings about work-shy aviators.

“You would oblige me by going about your own business, and leaving us to ours,” Will snapped at the man, enraged at the impudence in the face of Temeraire’s pain. The aviators present, Mr Jenkins and the harnessmaster’s mate Thorne as well as a few of the Reapers’ crews who had lingered to watch the operation, gladly took this encouragement. Taunts were flung in the direction of the sailors, who responded promptly and in kind, drawing the attention of a few more of the sailors who came thumping up to the dragon-deck. Temeraire growled at them and put out his claw to gather Jenkins and Thorne closer to himself, occasioning cries of terror from the rigging and an angry shout from Mr Laithwaite to stay still. Fiducia, the Yellow Reaper curled up closest to Temeraire, raised her head sleepily, inquired whether there was a battle, and bared her teeth in a yawn that had a good portion of the sailors quickly turning tail, shouting about mutiny and rebellion.

“What is the meaning of all this? Stop the noise, at once!” someone bellowed behind them. Lieutenant Riley stepped onto the dragon-deck. “Todd, Wright, get yourselves away, your grog is stopped. Hawick, James, take over that sail. Everyone else, back to your posts! Captain Laurence, I trust you can manage your men?” he asked, with a pointed stare at the idle aviators still trading dark looks with the sailors. The two men he had named quickly scurried down their rope-ladder, not without a last suggestive gesture in the direction of the aviators, and disappeared down one of the hatchways.

“But we were not rebelling at all!” Temeraire protested, curling his tail around Jenkins and Thorne, to the resentment of the remaining sailors who clearly longed to see them served some form of punishment, too. “They were only being very stupid.”

Will walked after Riley, restraining himself not to catch the lieutenant‘s arm. “Sir, you must permit me to explain – my dragon is injured, and I will not bear anyone insulting my men at their work, or punish them for making what I must call adequate reply-“

“Captain‚” Riley said, quietly, “With all due respect, reign in your temper. In future, if you have cause to complain of a sailor, you may speak to me directly, and I will do the same as concerns your crew. Respect and discipline must be maintained if we are to be good shipmates.” He touched his hat, bowed, and went away. His tone had been civil, his manner punctilious, but Will still felt like he had been slapped on the cheek.

“Will,” Temeraire asked when Will returned to his side, “Pray who was that?”

Will snorted. “One of the ship’s officers, a Lieutenant Riley.”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, with an unexpected note of interest, “Will you introduce me to him?”

I do not see why, if he chooses to be rude, Will thought, but he restrained himself. Mr Laithwaite had finished washing out Temeraire’s wound, spread it with a malodorous salve, and was now applying multiple wads of bandaging.

“Maybe later, my dear," Will said.

\--

“Light along the claret, will you, Laurence?” Captain Petham of Fiducia boomed, nudging Will with his elbow and pointing at the desired. Will startled from trying to overhear the lieutenants’ conversation and hastily reached for the bottle.

“Why we are using a grand old transport on this route?” Riley was saying, smiling a little at Ingram’s question, “Well, you see, she is an experiment of sorts. The first transport fitted with a steam engine, six years ago, and nobody thought it would work very well. Their lordships at the admiralty wouldn’t approve a purpose-built steamer until we could prove the principle, so we knocked a hole in this old lady’s hull to fit the wheel.” He patted the mast running through the table. “The _Resolution_ has been purpose-built to house it, so she cuts a much nicer figure. You will see.”

“Thank you," Captain Petham said, filling his glass and Will’s to the brim, “Now tell me, you have been trained up on that infamous fire-breather, Iskierka?”

Will nodded, reluctantly drawing his attention away from Riley and Ingram. His father had spoken of the newfangled steam ships a few times, expressing his doubts at their ever becoming ocean-going, although Will hadn’t listened very hard on those occasions – as a small rebellion, he had gone quite deaf whenever Laurence had talked of ships and sailing. He now regretted his inattention and would happily have caught more of Riley’s enthusiastic explanation. Instead, he was forced to dredge up an account of Horatio’s lieutenant years, second-hand, and pass it off as his own, a mortifying experience. Fortunately, Captain Petham did not pay much attention and instead took the first mention of Nova Scotia as a prompt to launch into anecdotes of his own.

Will gladly left the field to him. He found the conversation very hard going. Captain John Cudworth, who nominally had command of the _William of Orange_ , had arrived at the table already stone-drunk, which seemed almost a perpetual state in him; Captain Benjamin Little of the Reaper Immortalis was a morose and tongue-tied young fellow, and Captain Francis Petham had a great many bawdy jokes and military anecdotes, but very little conversation on any topic Will could carry on for any polite stretch.

To compound the awkwardness, an echo of the confrontation on the dragon-deck that morning still lingered. Due to his injury, Temeraire was now barred from flying, so there had been no hope of taking him aloft, even for a little while, to allow tempers to cool. Will had been hard-pressed to devise some form of punishment to echo Riley’s and mollify the sailors, but he had been unable to come up with a better idea than setting Jenkins and Thorne to scrubbing the soiled planks of the deck, and even that with a pang of bad conscience. Ingram had suggested they put the men on half-rations, but Will had found that notion untenable. Jenkins and Thorne had not given any more offense than he himself, and he went to dine with the officers, even if he would have preferred not to; however, Ingram had maintained that Will absenting himself would have been considered the pinnacle of rudeness.

At least some of the confusing shipboard hierarchy became clearer during the course of the dinner. Will noticed that on account of Captain Cudworth’s sorry state, Lieutenant Riley seemed to be captain in all but name. He had even said grace when Cudworth had only stared at his glass and Petham as the senior aviator present had made no move to step in. Nobody at the table had looked surprised, indicating this was a common occurrence, and Will was sorry to realize he had, with surefire instinct, offended the man whose goodwill would have been most instrumental to Temeraire’s comfort.

He picked at his plate without an appetite and excused himself at the earliest opportunity to check on Temeraire. The bandages had been changed twice more until they had stopped soaking. There was still an ugly gaping wound, but the edges were clean, the flesh less warmed, and Temeraire had devoured a whole porpoise the Reapers had caught for him. He seemed to have a natural way of commanding the respect of his fellow dragons that went beyond the instinctive precedence given to his larger size, and which held true even while he could not fly for himself. It boded ill for the leading role likely expected of them in India, but Will did not allow himself to dwell on that point, for the moment only relieved that he did not have to face up to Riley to beg from the ship’s stores to feed Temeraire. They read the first chapter of the _Odyssey_ together, and Will temporarily forgot his worries. He did not attempt the hammock again, but only went to fetch his bedding to sleep at Temeraire’s side.

In the small hours of the morning, he woke to notice somebody moving between the dragons. At first he thought it must be one of the other dragons’ crewmen on watch, but then he caught sight of a flash of red hair and belatedly recognized Lieutenant Riley, not wearing his blue coat but only a crumpled shirt and linen trousers that gave him the air of a sleepwalker. But he was not sleepwalking, instead making his way slowly and deliberately around the dragons – around Temeraire, Will realized, sitting up indignantly. Riley had no business skulking around as if they were a pair of criminals that needed watching, and oughtn’t come to the dragon-deck at all, if he was so eager for sailors and aviators to keep apart.

“Sir, have you lost your way?” Will said, and Riley startled and turned. His expression was entirely changed from before. He looked abashed, almost shy.

“Captain – I am sorry, I did not see you there. I… well, I could not get much sleep, so I came here to look at Temeraire. He is… quite something, as dragons go.”

Will frowned. He had expected many excuses, but not this one, and did not for a moment believe a naval officer cared about dragons. “Yes,” he said, warily, “Temeraire is a Celestial, a rare Chinese breed.”

“I know,” Riley said. A boyish smile crossed his face. “I remember seeing him in Dover once, when I was little, and thinking he was the most beautiful dragon I’d ever seen, barring Lily of course. I must say now, it wasn’t just a trick of the memory. You are a lucky man, Captain Laurence.”

Will’s confusion was complete now. “I haven’t heard many people say so,” he said, “Not many people outside the Corps, I mean.”

“Oh, forget about them,” Riley said candidly, “They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been called a fool many times over for not wanting to serve on anything but a dragon transport. They are not precisely sought-after, as posts go, as you can see with poor Captain Cudworth… but I for my part cannot bear to be away from dragons for more than a week on end.” He smiled wrily at this confession, and still looked not at all inclined to retreat.

Will was increasingly struck with the impression that Riley was not making some clumsy excuse for himself, but that his enthusiasm was genuine. “Come,” he said, reluctantly, “Let me introduce you to Temeraire. He was keen to meet you yesterday.”

Riley looked startled all over again. “Why, that is very kind – but is he not asleep?”

Will smiled, conscious of the telltale twitching of Temeraire’s ears – Temeraire was most certainly not asleep, but following the conversation with interest. He walked with Riley to Temeraire’s head and touched the soft muzzle, and Temeraire immediately opened his eyes.

“Why, you are Harcourt’s egg, aren’t you?” he said to Riley, when Will had made the introduction.

Riley nodded. “I am indeed.”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, “How tall you have become! But what are you doing here? Why are you not with Lily? Not that this ship isn’t almost as good, of course, but…” He cocked his head sideways, as if to say he would have expected otherwise.

Riley glanced at Will, with an apologetic smile. “Do you think I might speak with Temeraire, for a little while, if he is not too tired? I believe… well, I am almost certain he knew my late father.”

Will was surprised to find Temeraire had intimate conversation topics with Lieutenant Riley of all people, but he shrugged his shoulders. “By all means.”

He took himself to the opposite side of the dragon deck. The sun had barely risen above the horizon and the bell had not yet rung for the end of the night’s watch, but he did not feel tired anymore, so he took out his logbook and the letter to Laurence he had begun in Prussia, unhappily conscious that he owed at least a factual report on their progress. But his thoughts kept straying. He saw Riley leaning forward intently, listening to every word Temeraire had to say. From the little the lieutenant had said, it was plain that his own father was dead. Will looked at the empty letter in his hands. It felt petty and small-minded to be nursing a grudge against one’s own living father while watching another man plainly trying to scrape together any intelligence to be had of a father forever gone, but no matter how hard he stared at the page, the words would not come.

“I do not understand why humans need to die so soon,” Temeraire said, low, when Riley had at last thanked them and gone away, not without inviting Will to a game of cards in his cabin after dinner. “Laurence’s father died in his bed, and so did Lady Allendale when all she had was a little cough. Eroica said Captain Dyhern fell dead all of a sudden although he was not yet sixty. And Captain Little is very ill too, of something akin to the Dragon Plague, which is why Immortalis has taken Little’s nephew for captain now.”

“I am sorry to hear it, my dear,” Will said, feeling ashamed all over again, these sad circumstances going some way to explaining Ben Little’s silent and sorrowful expression, which he had taken for the mark of a dull and melancholy character.

Temeraire heaved a sigh and settled his head on his talons. “I wonder how Laurence is doing, and whether he is well.”

They looked at the soft colours of the Mediterranean sunrise for a while, waves glinting scarlet and gold, the heel of the Italian boot a faint outline in the starboard mists.

“Temeraire,” Will finally said, “Would you like me to write to father, on your behalf?”

Temeraire turned his head to look at him, pupils widening from where they had slit tight against the light, like doors opening to permit him to enter again. “You would do that? You haven’t sent him any letter yet, have you?”

Will shook his head. “No, I have not… because… well… I don’t think he much cares to hear about me. I shouldn’t be here at all, messing things up.”

“I think you are doing very well,” Temeraire said, earnestly, “And as for Laurence not wanting to hear about you, I am sure he does. He likes you very much. When you were little, he was always worried about you because you were sick so often … Not that there was any real cause for worry, because I was there to look after you, and Mrs Walker, and Tharkay when we had to go to London,” he added, quickly.

“Yes, Temeraire, but that was a long time ago. He may have loved me when I was a boy, but since then, I have disappointed him too often. He wished me in the Navy, like Lieutenant Riley, or taking the bar, or even the church. He thinks very little of my studies. I cannot blame him, they are as yet without any practical use. But it has made things… difficult.”

Temeraire flicked a talon dismissively. “I think you are mistaken, but even if it is so, I am sure he will think quite differently once you tell him more about it. Laurence always used to read to me when we travelled together, and I know he likes to learn new things. It was his idea we go to see Sir Edward Howe when I was newly hatched.”

“Sir Edward Howe?” Will said, surprised, “Father knew Sir Edward Howe… _the_ Sir Edward Howe?” He had never thought to question the origin of the signed copies of Howe’s books in the library at Castleton Hall. He had read them so often as a boy that he had been able to quote whole chapters verbatim, especially the sections on China and the Celestials. They still held a place very close to his heart although some of the scholarship had become dated and Professor Owen had never omitted a chance to criticize his rival. “Why on earth did he never tell me about it?”

Temeraire gave a low rumble. “Perhaps because you never spoke to each other very much?” he suggested.

Will did not know how to answer this gentle reproof. He folded his arms mutely, fixing his eyes back on the horizon. Temeraire watched him a short while, then he nudged his shoulder gently.

“Will?” he asked, “Perhaps we might start the letter?”

“As you wish," Will said, a little stiffly, and reached for his writing case. “I am ready to take your dictation.”

He was still inclined to be resentful, but he could not deny there was something strangely liberating in finally continuing the cursed letter. Temeraire spoke with eagerness and warmth, almost as if Laurence were sitting next to them, and Will took it all down as neatly as he could, irrationally hoping that between the lines, his father might glimpse the respect he himself could not put into words. A yawning Teddy Hawkes interrupted them at two bells with a plate of ship’s biscuit for breakfast, and Will put down his pen, surprised to see he had filled four sheets, front and back, _yours truly and devoted._

\--

“Why does your dragon call you ‘Will’?” Riley asked, in the privacy of his cabin. “Does he miss your father so very much?”

Will blushed, grateful for the half-light of the dimly lit room. Of course Riley thought he was speaking to Horatio. “I suppose so,” he said, evasively, “They were in the Corps for nearly ten years together and in parliament afterwards. When I was little, I could not picture father without also thinking of Temeraire, and vice versa. They seemed quite inseparable. …Your turn.”

Riley nodded as if this sentiment was only natural. He put down his card and rearranged his hand. “Sir William is a formidable gentleman, make no mistake. I am indebted to him for making me some helpful introductions. He and my own father served in the Navy together, many years ago. My father died in a shipboard accident when I was very young and the Admiral was kind enough to take an interest in my progress. My mother couldn’t have given me a leg up in the Navy even if she had wanted to.”

“I am sorry to hear it. Is she… impoverished?” Will ventured, gathering up Riley’s trick of cards and marking down the score.

Riley laughed. “Oh, no, by no means. She is an aviator, Captain Harcourt of Lily… or rather, Admiral Harcourt, it is now, the one who signed your orders. I am surprised you haven’t heard of her. Did you not… do you not know Alice?”

“Alice?”

“My little sister. She was on Iskierka, too… never mind. She clearly made less of an impression on you than you on her,” Riley said, with a sidelong look at him.

“I suppose," Will said. There had been a mention of a midwingman Harcourt in one of Horatio’s letters once, he recalled dimly, but he had not even been aware the officer in question had been a young lady. “But why did you not choose the Corps, if your mother and sister are aviators?” he asked.

Riley looked at his cards. “There wasn’t much choosing to do. Mother would have had me in the Corps, of course. But I have several elderly aunts on my father’s side to look after, and an entailed estate in Lincolnshire where my cousins live. Mother has no mind for it, but I don’t see why my patrimony should be thrown to the wind. Setting it all to rights consumes a few weeks each year, even after we sold off the plantations in the West Indies. It is easier to manage with Navy shore-leave than with a dragon, though God knows as a boy I dreamt of nothing more than a beast of my own…” He halted. “I am sorry, I am being dreadfully dull. You must think me mercenary.”

“No, not at all,” Will said. Although he could hardly tell Riley so, he knew perfectly well what it felt like to grow up dreaming of dragons, while knowing all rational considerations forbade such a path. Seeing Riley's discomfort, he instead nodded to a piano crammed into the back of the cabin. “Do you play?” he asked.

“No. I can’t tell a violin from a trombone,” Riley said, “It is a gift for my fiancé. Do you?”

“No, I don’t, although I do like a concert, from time to time,” Will said, a little embarrassed to have unwittingly brought up so personal a topic. “Congratulations. On your engagement, I mean.”

Riley sighed. “Well, there you have it. Another reason the Corps can ill use me.” He looked up a little worried. “Sorry, that was a callous thing to say. Of course there are exceptions. I don’t suppose you have anyone waiting for you at home? I saw you brought some lace, which can hardly be for your own use.”

“No, nobody at all,” Will said, truthfully, “The lace was meant for Temeraire, although he didn’t much care for it. You’re welcome to it if you want. Perhaps you can give us some sailcloth in turn, to make a proper parley-flag.”

Riley laughed. “I may take you up on that offer, Captain.”

Will grinned. “Please, call me W…” He caught himself and swallowed. “Horatio.”

“Tom.”

They sat together a long time afterwards, for another two rounds of cards and then simply talking of dragons and the merits of various breeds and new crosses, on which Riley showed himself remarkably well informed. Quite in contrast to the stifled dinner the previous night, conversation flowed easily, and when Will finally took his leave at midnight, the initial coldness had been thoroughly dispelled.

\--

It was very odd to be in the middle of the desert, and yet afloat, Temeraire thought. But he had to admit it was a neat scheme.

The Suez Canal Company Board included no fewer than three dragons, one of whom, an elegant Papillon Noir called Cléopâtre whose companion was the French consul at Alexandria, had flown across to speak to him. According to her, dragons had done most of the surveying and were now making swift work of dredging a canal in the rocky Egyptian desert, and the first few sections had been flooded already. When the construction was finished – in a year’s time, if Cléopâtre’s estimate was not too optimistic – ships would be able to go straight from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, with great savings of time for the Eastern trade. Temeraire had been thoroughly impressed, despite her slightly self-satisfied manner, and the gold and lapis lazuli collar she had worn had been very handsome indeed. He thought he would have to speak to Laurence about buying shares in the venture, as he had learned from Cléopâtre that they hadn’t all been sold yet.

However, for the moment, he was stuck on a raft.

The canal was yet too small to permit a ship the size of the _William of Orange_ to enter, so he had instead embarked on an odd craft made of two immense bundles of reeds – or papyrus, as Little Will had called the peculiar material – tied together, with a platform of solid planks between them and a slanted triangular sail. It could be tugged from the canal bank and was how the provisions for the construction dragons travelled, and now their baggage and a large number of sailors to man the new ship at Suez. Temeraire was cramped and unhappy to be trundled along like a piece of furniture, but there was no use complaining: He was still not allowed to fly, although his shoulder had now scabbed over and barely hurt at all.

To add insult to injury, he had had to watch Little Will and Riley go aboard Immortalis for a trip to the Giza Pyramids, a strange monument which Will said constituted one of the Wonders of the World, and after a day’s flying back and forth they had easily caught up with him on his slow raft. He unhappily tallied the days in his head, and arrived at seventeen – almost a fifth of Iskierka’s hundred days gone, and they were not even halfway to China.

However, there were some welcome developments. His old formation-mate Immortalis as well as the younger Reaper Fiducia were also bound for Bombay, and Lieutenant Riley was still with them, too – or rather, Captain Riley: for as it had turned out, he had been appointed to the _Resolution_ that lay at Suez awaiting her first voyage on the India run for which she had been built. There had even been a little ceremony in the ramshackle harbour of Port Said where the _William of Orange_ had anchored, and Riley had been handed his sword by a once-sober Captain Cudworth with the sailors and aviators lined up on deck, a gratifying spread of neat uniforms and polished boots. Temeraire had been particularly pleased when Riley had come to him afterwards and asked him to convey his thanks to Laurence, for helping him into the Navy.

After another two days of slow progress, the flooded section of the canal stopped and Mr Laithwaite grudgingly allowed Temeraire to go aloft again with only Will on his back, the rest of his crew travelling on Immortalis. Temeraire flew a small circle to survey the building works more closely, at least fifteen Egyptian dragons and their crews busily shovelling and scraping away. He was sorry to see some of them looked rather famished and began to have second thoughts about backing the venture. He tried to imagine what Laurence would say to it - Laurence always had a way of knowing right from wrong where Temeraire found things confusingly blurry- and then wondered whether Laurence had managed to defend their bill for the factory dragons, after all. There had been British newspapers in the port, but they had been so out of date as to be useless. At least they had finally sent Laurence a letter, and even begun another one, so Laurence would soon know where they were and Temeraire had hope of receiving a reply.

When they reached the shore of the Red Sea, Temeraire immediately spotted the _Resolution_. She was smaller than the _William of Orange_ , but still respectably sized by comparison to the small dhows crowding around her, and with her straight bow she looked a good deal squarer and sleeker than the old transport. The dragon-deck was disposed in the middle of the ship between the two paddle-wheels next to the chimney rather than at the rear, which was instead taken up with one of her three masts. The deck could hold four dragons at most, although with the Reapers being only middle-weight, Temeraire thought he would have more than enough space.

The small port of Suez was still little more than a fishing village and not at all used to supplying a dragon-transport, so ferrying their supplies took painfully long, and the Reapers went busily back and forth to fetch the remaining sailors and baggage from the canal rafts. The tiresome operations consumed a whole day. On account of his supposed poor health, Temeraire was not allowed to help and paced the shore uselessly, until Will suggested they work on their correspondence, which was some consolation. Will even drew him a handsomely detailed picture of the _Resolution_ to include in their next letter, which Temeraire felt certain Laurence would appreciate. He would gladly have enlisted Riley to label all the parts Will did not know to name, but Riley was more than busy getting the measure of the new ship and crew. The next morning, they finally set off across the Red Sea, first under a cautious small spread, but gradually, more and more sail was brought out, until they moved at a stately eight knots.

Temeraire went flying for increasingly longer stretches each day now. Further away from the ship and the eyes of the other crews, Will agreed to some drill practice and Temeraire suggested exercises to try. He soon had all his own small crew scrambling about his back in their carabiners, trying to reduce the speed it took them to climb from the base of his tail to his shoulders or from the belly-rigging to the crest of his spine. He suggested dropping sand sacks as mock incendiaries, and finally, to Isabella Dlamini’s great satisfaction, volleys of rifle- and pistol-shot. They flew low raking passes across the water and once Temeraire caught a thrashing swordfish the length of a man. They presented it to Captain Riley for his table, to thank him for letting them plunder from the  _Resolution'_ s magazine, but to Temeraire's happy surprise, the fish was brought back up to the dragon-deck that evening spiced and roasted, with a note of congratulations for their hard work, drawing envious glances from the Reapers. Riley was a very good fellow indeed. Emboldened by this encouragement, Little Will allowed them to fly closer to the ship, and after a few days, he went so far as to accept Isabella's challenge to practice fencing standing up in their straps, surprising Temeraire and, it seemed, most of all himself. He promptly misstepped while unlatched and tumbled into the waves, fortunately from a small altitude and well away from the rocky shore. Temeraire immediately dived to snatch him up and bundled him back to the deck of the _Resolution_ to make sure he hadn’t taken any injury. But Will only laughed and insisted on coming back aboard without even shifting his soaked clothes, only kicking off his boots.

“Temeraire,” he said, scraping his wet hair out of his face, “Do you think we can try something else… I’ve seen it on Chinese engravings, but I’m not sure if it is possible…”

“What do you mean?” Temeraire asked and leant in closer. When he understood what Will meant, he nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh, of course I can do that, all Chinese dragons can! Are you all latched on quite safely?”

When they had called out in confirmation, he beat up joyfully and looped through the sky in a full standing circle. He heard shouting and clapping, and after a moment realized it came from the ship below them, the sailors on deck and in the rigging all looking up and pointing at them. “Well done, my dear,” Will said quietly, patting his neck, and Temeraire flew another tight corkscrew directly above the ship, chest proudly swelled.

Their drills roused the interest of the Reapers, who soon asked to join in. Their captains were initially a little reserved and made silly excuses, such as a shortage of supplies to sustain the exertion of daily flights, or the uncertain chain of command between them, by which they meant they didn’t want to take orders from Little Will. However, Fiducia and Immortalis were plainly unhappy to sit on deck while Temeraire frolicked above, and when they left the Gulf of Aden and struck out into the Indian Ocean, Captain Petham finally agreed to a trial and Captain Little followed suit. Temeraire now had even more to fill his days, trying to think of new manoeuvres for his small formation. The reapers were agile and quick to grasp his ideas, even if young Fiducia was a little skittish, and Immortalis not best pleased when Captain Little sent over a handful of his crew to Temeraire to allow them to run through mock-boarding operations. Will was initially very shy to receive them, too, although Temeraire did not see why: He stood in his straps very easily now, and could load and fire the beautiful Venetian pistol without dropping powder or bullet, and in any case, Lieutenant Ingram, for all his other shortcomings, made swift work of chivvying the new arrivals into position on Temeraire's back.

Thanks to the summer monsoon whirling around the Arabian Peninsula, they barely needed to go under steam now, which was fortunate as the sooty exhaust was not pleasant to breathe in and had a way of staining the white sails. They were overtaken by a few fast-sailing East Indiamen, who saluted them when they spotted their British flag. In the evenings, Temeraire lay sprawled on the dragon-deck and watched Will trying to teach Isabella and Teddy Hawkes history, spelling and algebra, occasionally pitching in to correct their stumbling multiplication tables, and they finished every day reading the _Odyssey_. Temeraire was almost fully content, though what he missed, he realized when the lookout’s cry rang out one clear morning, and not ten minutes later, a breathless courier dropped onto the dragon-deck.

It was a Sunday and they had all been assembled on deck for the service. The men crowded around the small dragon and his captain with much shouting and questioning for news from home, until one of the lieutenants, Mr Balfour, shouted out for order across their heads. The chaos subsided a little, the chaplain hurriedly concluded his sermon, and then the handing out of the mail could begin in earnest, starting with Captain Riley and progressing to the dragon-captains.

The crossbreed courier was not a dragon Temeraire knew, hailing from the relay-station at Cairo, and neither he nor his captain had any direct news from England. But they carried – joy over joy – a letter from Laurence, addressed _Temeraire_ in Laurence’s own hand. Isabella stepped forward to accept it on Temeraire’s behalf when his name was read out and Will was nowhere to be seen.

“Shall I open it?” she asked, doubtfully. “Where is the Captain?”

Behind them, Immortalis’ name was read out, and Benjamin Little accepted the letter, he and his dragon immediately bending over it. Temeraire himself could hardly restrain the burning desire to hear what Laurence had written, straight away. But Little Will was missing.

“Isabella,” Temeraire asked, “Will you go down to his cabin, and see whether he is there?”

Isabella nodded and turned to go below decks.

“Pray be careful with the letter!” Temeraire called after her.

When she returned, several long minutes later, she shook her head. “I can’t find him.”

Temeraire snorted. “How can he- Why, there you are! Come here quickly, we have a letter from Laurence. – But Will, whatever is the matter?”

Little Will was walking towards them, pale and unsmiling, and he shook his head as he tucked something into his pocket. “Nothing at all. Let us read your letter.”

\--

In the confusion surrounding the courier, Will had quickly snatched his bundle of letters out of the pile before anyone around could see it was addressed _W. T. Laurence_ , and walked away to the stern. There were three, the first an official-looking document with the seal of the Foreign Ministry on it, the second addressed in Tharkay’s hand and oddly shaped. The third was from Horatio, in an even worse version of his crabbed longhand. Will tore it open.

_Castleton, Derbys., Jun. 28, 1838_

_Dear Little Will  
_

_I hope you appreciate the effort I’m making – I’m writing this with my left hand and it will take me all Day. However, I can’t say I have much else to occupy me._

_I have gathered from the couriers that you are on a transport bound for Bombay, which is further than most of us would have wagered you would make it, so I will be so bold as to send this by express to the Presidency, and hope it reaches you somewhere along the Route. Much Obliged to you for not having gambled me away to Iskierka Thus far.  
_

_I wish I could write we are doing quite well, but that would be stretching it. Father has taken your disappearance rather harshly. For the first few days, he pretended you did not exist. If I so much as mentioned your Name, he would get up and leave the room. But after your letter arrived two days ago (which he has not shown me, nor anyone else), he has changed. God Will, what have you written? Father looked like he had seen a Ghost. He took to sitting in Temeraire’s pavilion all by himself, and Mother and Mr Tharkay had to make a real Effort just to make him eat his meals. He has gone away this morning on the London Coach and has told nobody what he is about. But he is planning Something, if I am any judge._

_My Period of grace has also elapsed now. Last week I was first able to stand and I have promptly been upbraided. I will spare you the Particulars but it was quite something. You’d have thought Father were on deck of one of his ships again and not in the Middle of our sitting room, and me some Sailor caught drunk on watch and Not an officer in Her Majesty‘s service. It would not stand in the Corps I am sure. But then neither would Dueling.  
_

_I cannot say whether I even still am an officer at all. I am still waiting to hear the Admiralty’s judgement, but it is not sounding too good. (If you can, have Temeraire do something heroic, or at least don’t start any fresh wars, so they will be reminded we cannot lose him.) I had hoped my Actions had at least given them cause to question Lt Rankin’s suitability. But it looks like he will still get a dragon as his father’s insufferable Beast insists on Him and his family have made a great noise about it (it is rotten bad luck one of them is an Earl), so more likely than not they will just send him back to Australia as if nothing had Happened, and I cannot say one single good thing has come of it all, since they must still make an Example of me. Mother says I should Keep quiet and let the Dust settle and then maybe something can be Contrived but it is damn hard to be kicking my Heels uselessly._

_I don’t want to be a complainer seeing as I brought it on my own Head, but the last days have been very bleak indeed, especially knowing I have Ruined things for you as well, now. I am very sorry to say that a letter has come from your College saying you have been Rusticated, for Absenting without leave, failing to attend some examination, and Causing Grievous Harm to the Property of HM’s Navy, which is a pile of nonsense – as if you asked Temeraire to sink that ~~boat~~ Ship. I promise I will go there and explain, as soon as I can face one of those damned Coaches again, see if I don’t. However, I have been given to understand it is not equal to an expulsion? Either way I am damned sorry._

_Our Lady Mother, who has just come past, bids me write that she does not care a Toss about your wager, but if anything should happen to Isabella Dlamini, you are to answer for it. For the first part, I have reason to doubt her, since I am reliably informed she has placed a sum of ten pounds on your success. (I do not mean to worry you, and Trust you will pay no mind, but the 100 days have been the Talk of the Corps after the formation at Dover set the rumour spreading and even the littlest ensign seems to have an opinion on how it will end.)  
_

_Give my love to Temeraire._

_Yours, etc._

_Horatio_

_P.S. Adm. Granby and Iskierka have been so kind as to visit yesterday. They send their regards._ _Granby did his best to assuage Father. He said – I am quoting direct – that you looked A Capable Enough Fellow. So pray take Heart._

Will lowered the letter and stared at the waves.

His brother’s health was improving, that was something. But they had not reinstated Horatio, and he himself had been rusticated: a university punishment usually meted out to slackers, brawlers and drunkards, of being sent to the countryside to mend one’s ways. He knew full well it meant he had been suspended in disgrace, banned from setting foot in his college or any university building, his name posted up next to the great hall for all to see, a crashing blow to all his aspirations, yet presently, he only felt somewhat numbed. He was immediately certain he would not plead for forgiveness, in the debasing manner in front of a panel of university elders that was the accepted mode of reinstatement, and an influential advocate on his behalf was equally unlikely. So he wondered distantly what he might do with himself instead. Perhaps he could apply for a post in the breeding grounds. Or he might seek out Hammond again and try for the foreign service, if a command of Chinese and a dubious Imperial connection could weigh up a tarnished university record.

Then Temeraire’s alarmed voice rose over the din of the assembled men and suddenly recalled him to his present situation. He hastily tucked away the letters and hurried back to the dragon-deck.

Temeraire made him read Laurence’s letter thrice over. It was short and almost disappointingly cheerful, no line betraying the dark moods Horatio had hinted at. Laurence wrote that he had been delighted to receive news of their safe passage so far, of their new friends in Prussia and of Tom Riley's progress; that he was presently kept very busy in parliament, and that the bill he had prepared with Temeraire’s advice had withstood its first reading so he hoped that it would pass with amendments. He went on to say they were still hopeful for Horatio’s full pardon, again painting a rather different picture than his son’s letter had done, and closed with a few remarks on political issues of the day as well as greetings from a number of parliamentary dragons Temeraire knew.

Temeraire did not want to go flying that afternoon. He briefly padded across to Immortalis to inquire whether there had been any news of his former captain, whom he too had known. When he heard the man was alive, if little improved, he settled down again and then sat brooding over his letter, prodding at it absently from time to time as if he sensed its omissions and expected the paper to start singing out a further secret message. Will left him to read the remaining letters, and turn over his own worries in his head. The note from Tharkay was friendly but short and apparently sent in some haste a few days after Horatio's letter, from Penzance where his godfather had likely gone on one of his more opaque errands. It contained no further information about his father’s health or state of mind. Tharkay wrote he hoped they might find the enclosed useful in the subcontinent, referring to a small object wrapped in brown paper. Opening it, Will found a small turquoise and rock crystal pendant framed in silver, etched with the image of a frightful many-armed goddess. He stared at it uncomprehending. It was much too small for Temeraire, and he himself had no use for jewellery, nor any heathen good-luck charm.

“ _Laurence! Little!_ ” Captain Petham‘s roaring voice had never been more intrusive, nor more welcome, startling him from his thoughts. “What is this about, slouching and making long faces? Has anyone died? No? So you are demoralising our dragons and men without cause, a stone’s throw away from bloody Bombay, so they can laugh at us when we get there? To your feet at once, let us practice those passes another time! Temeraire, you must direct us – you're not joining in this moping, are you?”

Temeraire raised his head, doubtfully, and nudged Will. “I am not sure… do you think we should?”

Will nodded and crumpled the letters back into his pocket, rather violently. “Of course,” he said. “We will go flying. Isabella! Will you fetch me my pistol, if you please?”

Riley, walking past, said they might run out the cannons for a little firing-practice while they were at it, ignoring the chaplain feebly protesting it was a Sunday.

The operation was a shambles at first. Neither Temeraire nor Immortalis were focused on the task, and Immortalis nearly fouled Fiducia’s wing on a simple crossover pattern they had done a dozen times before. But the thundering roll of the ship’s cannons was heartening to hear and called them back to attention. They dove and surged with greater accuracy, thereafter, coalesced into an arrowhead shape to circle the ship, and finished with the most difficult manoeuvre Temeraire had devised: All three of them darted away across the water in a pretense of retreat, the Reapers forming something of a corkscrewing screen around Temeraire, until at the snap of a signal-flag, Temeraire doubled back on himself and drew a breath. The smaller dragons fell away neatly to his sides as he unleashed the force of the Divine Wind against the water. A tremendous wave built and rolled away from the ship, rocking the _Resolution_ in her path, and clouds of dead and stunned fish rose to the surface, to the screeching delight of the gulls.

Dinner in Riley's cabin was a happy affair that evening. They toasted the Queen, the Prime Minister, Captain Riley and the _Resolution_ , each of the dragons, their present and former captains, Admiral Harcourt and the subcontinental division, the Bombay Presidency, the East India company, and then made increasingly fanciful addresses, until Riley proposed a toast to the dragon-breeders of China and the West who had turned the power and grace of dragons into as magnificent a weapon as they had been able to witness that afternoon. He said it surely was the next best thing in the world to magic.

“But there is nothing magical to it,” Will said, without thinking much of it, and turned to the remains of the chicken they had had for dinner to illustrate. “You see the hollowness of the bones, and the struts inside that lend support – it is much the same in dragons, making them so very light and yet strong. Their lungs are fixed to the sides of their chests, instead of being compliant like those of terrestrial animals, so they don’t suffer under the pressure changes during flight and their delicate lungs aren't crushed under the weight of their bodies. They breathe in and out by means of the air-sacs in their chest, belly, and base of the tail, which also lend them their great natural buoyancy. Now when it comes to flying, they are built so the centre of gravity lies over their wing-joints, which means they-“ He checked himself, looking up guiltily as he remembered how lectures of this sort tended to go down at his family’s dinner-table, and put down the chicken bone. “Pray excuse me, I have fallen into rambling.”

However, the other captains, the lieutenants and even the midwingmen further down at the table were leaning in to listen.

“I see you are something of a scholar, Laurence,” Captain Little said, “Do carry on. It is very interesting.”

Riley, too, nodded enthusiastically and refilled Will’s glass. “Pray have you anything to say on how they speak, if their lungs are so funny?”

Will could not suppress a smile. “I do indeed. You see, gentlemen, the issue is…”

\--

He woke early the next morning, feeling refreshed despite the late night and liberal amounts of wine, to cries of _Land, ho!_ , and realised that – on account of liquor or high spirits or both combined – he had fallen asleep in his dreaded hammock without even thinking about it.

He dressed slowly and painstakingly, in his old things from England and the brown civilian coat. Then he folded away Horatio’s flying-coat, placed the black pistol on top of it and shut the lid of his trunk, instead arming himself with Hammond’s letter. The previous night, he had felt comfortable and accepted in the company of his fellow captains for the first time. He did not want to think too hard about what their reaction would be today, when they realised what he really was – worse than an outsider or upstart, for which they might have pardoned him, but a liar. He could have spoken at the dinner, or even better straight after Hammond’s letter had come with the rest of the mail. Instead, he had carried on, too happy to have a friend and comrades to be truthful.

On the dragon-deck, Temeraire was still fast asleep, Fiducia stretched out on his back. Will went to the ship’s prow to take in the sunrise. It was the tenth of July and the _Resolution_ was gliding under a silent spread of sail towards Bombay harbour.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Little Will and Temeraire cross the Mediterranean on the old_ William of Orange _, newly changed to steam propulsion, travel along the half-built Suez Canal to the Red Sea and finally board a brand new dragon transport, the_ Resolution _, bound for Bombay. After initial hostility, Will befriends a naval officer Tom Riley. Temeraire is happy to meet Immortalis again and soon asserts his place as wing leader with the Yellow Reapers who have been sent to reinforce the Bombay covert._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I did not want to slap them on the entire story, but warnings apply here for_   
>  _1\. Extremely long rambling chapter_   
>  _2\. Depictions of violence_   
>  _3\. Period-typical racism_

The Bombay covert was in a state of chaos. To Little Will’s untrained eye, there was neither order nor system to the pandemonium of four dragons – a majestic Longwing, a Chequered Nettle and two smaller crossbreeds – being harnessed and loaded, and he immediately managed to be in everyone’s way. Gingerly picking his way across the courtyard, Will found himself pushed out of the way by a gun crew carrying nets of incendiaries, shouted at for stumbling across a stray loop of harness, and having to jump aside to avoid the Nettle’s heavy barbed tail as the dragon swung it around to enable a last strap of harness to be secured. Will finally retreated into a colonnade flanking the courtyard, thoroughly confused. The harbour and city had looked busy, but by no means under attack, and he could only wonder at the occasion of these frantic preparations. It was not yet eight in the morning.

A young runner scurried past and Will caught the boy by the scruff of the neck. “Pray tell me, where can I find Admiral Harcourt?”

The child – who on closer inspection turned out to be a girl of seven or eight – stared at him for a moment, then she pointed to the Longwing. “Why, she is right there with Lily, can’t you see?”

She made her escape, leaving Will to squint against the bright light. The Longwing captain presently stood by her dragon’s side talking with two of her colleagues, one of whom had unrolled a map against the dragon’s foreleg while the other was still gulping down his morning coffee without the least conscience. She seemed to think nothing of holding this conference in the middle of the crews and dragons, and indeed her own beast was craning her neck around to peer at the map and participate in the discussion.

Will did not think his intrusion would be welcome, yet he took heart in the show of informality, and cautiously approached the group.

Admiral Harcourt looked up from her map frowning. Then suddenly and before he had said anything, her freckled face lit up in a smile. “Captain Horatio Laurence, is it? I thought I glimpsed a pair of black wings coming into harbour, but I could scarce believe it. I wrote to the admiralty to request you as soon as I saw your name come out on the list, but I did not expect you so soon. Come here, I am sorry there will not be much time to settle in, we have work for you and Temeraire…” She looked him over from top to toe and raised an eyebrow. “You do have your father’s likeness I daresay, although that nose is your mother’s.”

Will was too taken aback to reply immediately, and busy enough trying not to gape at her. Admiral Harcourt was a tall, slender woman of very upright carriage, her hair red like her son’s and greying only a little at the temples. Besides the frogged admiral’s coat, carelessly unbuttoned, she wore an unusual wide pair of cotton trousers and a tunic in the local Indian style, likely a concession to the tropical heat and the drenching showers that came down twice a day, with a shocking lack of necktie. More disconcerting still was the glint of a small gold stud in the corner of her nose, completely unlike anything Will had ever seen in an English lady, much less in a serving-officer. She did not look an inch out of place, however; in the entire courtyard, Will had not seen anything vaguely approaching a full uniform. His father would have been appalled.

“Ma’am- Admiral, I am sorry to disappoint you,” he finally managed. “I believe you requested my brother, Captain Horatio Laurence, but he is presently recovering from an injury. My name is William, and I am not a Captain of the Corps.”

The admiral shrugged her shoulders. “The other twin, I see. Just as well. We don’t stand on formality here. Gentlemen,” she said, turning to the other two captains, “may I present William Tenzing Laurence of Temeraire, Admiral Laurence’s youngest. Mr Laurence, these are Captain Fairfax of Miratus, the Chequered Nettle over there, and Captain Turner of Audax, our wingdragon.” She pointed to the smaller mottled green beast with red stripes that, Will surmised, might be the result of some feral cross, and then nodded to the second cross-breed. “That fellow over there is Captain Forthing of Ajax. I believe you know Lily? Temeraire does, they were in formation together before, and we are damned glad to have him back at his place.”

Captains Fairfax and Turner murmured their greetings and stepped aside to let him into their circle – happily and easily, Will noted with a pang. Only the Longwing brought her head very close and peered at him suspiciously. But Will was familiar enough with old Excidium’s scrutinizing stare not to flinch. His mother’s dragon had never become an intimate friend like Temeraire and, while kind-hearted, had always been given to grumbling about boy children not worth his captain’s bother.

“Where is Temeraire?” Lily demanded. “I need to speak to him!”

“He is waiting on our transport. I am sorry” Will said, turning back to the admiral to hand her Hammond’s letter. “I am afraid I haven’t made myself understood. I am not _of_ Temeraire, I am not assigned to any dragon at all, and we are not here to fill out your formation. I am on my way to China on a diplomatic mission.”

Harcourt only glanced at the letter very briefly, as if she found Will’s protest beside the point. “Well, Mr Laurence, be that as it may, but you will find traveling out of the presidency rather hard-going with a good stretch of the border province on fire and the Marathas bent on taking down any British dragon who tries to cross over their heads. They care very little for diplomacy, after all the East India Company has done.”

 

\--

 

“But Will!” Temeraire protested. “They are going to fight a _battle_ – a proper battle! Are you sure we shouldn’t join? Lily is my friend after all, and Immortalis and Fiducia are going, too!”

His tail was lashing against the columns of the beautifully carved wooden pavilion in the covert gardens, the thrumming noise a lingering echo of the formation’s drums as they had gone aloft and swept away overhead in an impeccable arrow shape.

The covert itself was elegant, completely unlike the practical and sometimes downright shabby facilities Will had encountered in England. The main complex had once been a merchant’s palace, an airy fretwork construction built a few centuries ago, and now lay smothered under bougainvillea hedges. The smaller dragons had the use of the vaulted former storage magazines, pleasantly cool even in the midday heat, while the larger beasts preferred the garden pavilions. But the grounds now lay deserted except for a small dozing courier, and Temeraire had no appreciation for the clever construction of the pavilion or the beauty of the gardens.

“I cannot think it wise,” Will said, unhappily watching Temeraire’s fidgeting. “You don’t even have a full harness and not nearly enough crew to resist boarding attempts, now that Immortalis has all his complement back. Besides, we would be sure to disorder their formation.”

“But I have flown with Lily and Immortalis often enough, it will come back quite easily,” Temeraire argued. “And we did very well aboard ship, with Immortalis and Fiducia – Admiral Harcourt would be as happy for the three of us to work together again, I am sure.”

“We are staying here," Will said with finality.

Temeraire snorted and curled himself up, and when Will offered him the book, he declined.

Will sat down on the pavilion steps and wiped his brow, unsure how to pass the waiting hours – waiting days perhaps. He had taken off his coat and necktie, but the sweltering heat was still hard to bear. He could have gone into the covert’s cooler rooms, but did not like to think about how he would be received there. Temeraire’s own crew had eyed him darkly, the aviators united in their disapproval of what they viewed as shirking battle. Admiral Harcourt, too, had grown impatient when he had remained firm on not joining their campaign, and all the captains – including Petham and Little who had brought their beasts up from the harbour – had bowed to him very stiffly before their departure, leaving him in no doubt as to their opinion. Will told himself that he did not have anything to reproach himself for. He would not hazard Temeraire’s health and his brother’s prospects for his own vainglorious pride. But the next moment he wondered whether he was making excuses for himself, whether he was just afraid after all. For a moment he even considered offering Temeraire to join his friends on his own – Temeraire had all the experience and physical skill he himself lacked. But every instinct cried out against letting Temeraire face danger and battle alone. No, they had better wait until the fighting at the border had died down, and then they could try to reach the British possessions at Madras and find some form of transport on to Canton. He ought to go to town and make enquiries about the shipping schedules.

Just as he had formed this neat resolve, he heard steps on the gravel path behind them. Captain Riley was walking towards the pavilion, a dark frown on his forehead and his hat tucked tightly under his arm. Will had to suppress the urge to hide behind Temeraire’s side, unsure whether he could face Riley’s anger after the contempt of the aviators. But he mastered himself, got up and stepped outside the pavilion.

Riley ignored his outstretched hand, shattering any hope of restoring relations to a formal and appropriate level. Will braced himself for a tirade, but Riley only said a little absently: “Horatio - no, what is your name? William? Well, William, I have a request to make.”

Will stared.  “So you have heard?” he said. “You know that I lied to you, that I deceived you and everyone else on your ship… And you are still speaking to me?”

“What, that you passed yourself off as your brother?” Riley said, still with an astonishing lack of heat. He even smiled a little. “Why, I have often dreamed of running away to a dragon under some made-up name, so I cannot begrudge you having done it, given half the chance. But if you want to think of it that way, you may grant me my plea by way of apology... but what _are_ you, if I may ask, if not an aviator?”

“I… well… until last month, I was studying to be a naturalist. I haven’t the slightest idea what I am to call myself now.” He ran a hand over his face. “What is it you want me to do?”

Riley hesitated. “It is a personal matter. Will you come inside with me, and take a drink? I am melting out here in the heat.”

Will threw a glance at Temeraire, who ignored them both, and nodded. “For a moment… but Tom, would you mind greatly if we went somewhere outside the covert?”

“Not in the least,” Riley said. “Temeraire, we will be back shortly.”

“Yes. And I will sit here and do _nothing,_ ” Temeraire muttered.

 

\--

 

“Temeraire seems unhappy,” Riley said as the made their way through the crowded streets of Bombay, thronged with vendors, labourers, sailors, beggars, brightly-clad women and lumbering carts. A few humped oxen with red-laquered horns sat in the middle of the road with no apparent purpose at all, disordering the traffic, yet nobody drove them away.

“He didn’t like to see his friends going away to fight. I told him to stay behind,” Will confessed. “Do you know anything of the battle they are joining?”

Again, Riley did not speak immediately. They had reached the gate of a large and gleaming white edifice, set further back from the street behind an impressive wrought-iron fence, with a liveried servant at the gate.

“The Bombay branch of the Army and Navy Club,” Riley said. He presented his card and the gate was opened for them. “I don’t particularly like the place, but they have the best breakfast in town, particularly if your stomach is not yet used to India… just don’t tell anyone you have a dragon, will you?”

Will followed him inside apprehensively. He had bad memories of a club to which his cousin Edward, Lord Allendale’s youngest son, had once taken him when they had met by chance in London. Will had been seventeen at the time and astonished to witness so many spare sons of the aristocracy engaged in the serious business of doing absolutely nothing. In turn, Will had found himself the subject of intense and unpleasant curiosity by Edward’s club friends, with the usual sly questions about his famous father and many ill-informed remarks on dragons. It had been tedious and mortifying to have to explain, over and over, that Admiral Laurence’s dragon did not eat small children, was not in the least interested in snatching young maidens, and did not keep a messy pile of gold and jewels to sleep on, preferring instead to keep his money invested in the funds.

They crossed the bright and airy entrance hall and entered a darker wood-paneled sitting room that would not have been out of place in the heart of England, complete with a chandelier, fireplace, billiard table and scowling tiger skin rug. To Will’s great relief, it lay almost empty. One of the adjoining doors led into a small smoking room. There was a collection of maps and prints tacked to one of the walls. Riley walked towards them, beckoning Will to follow him.

“About the formation," he said, low, “I didn’t have a chance to speak to mother at length, but I gather they have gone to repel an incursion in the border province east of here, on the border with the Marathas.”

A worried furrow stood on his forehead as he ran his finger over a map of the subcontinent to point it out to Will.

“This northern realm here is the Maratha kingdom. The East India Company has fought them four times altogether, and never succeeded at quelling them… although I gather things have quietened down the last decade, until now,” he said. Then he traced another large territory stretching almost coast to coast in the south. “Bordering our possessions in the south, here, is the kingdom of Mysore. Shukar Sultan is an avowed enemy of Britain. His father Tipu was killed fighting the Company at Seringapatam. Shukar and his brother were held hostage by Lord Cornwallis for a year, until his father’s dragon came for them with an aerial squadron and a rocket battalion. They burnt down half of Madras town while they were at it, a terrible blaze. The older prince was killed in the endeavour. That was, let me see, in the year one if I am not mistaken. Shukar was a very young boy then, but he has never stopped hating the Company. Most of our defences have been built along the southern frontier, and the northern and eastern borders with the Marathas left quite neglected… which brings me to my request.”

Will nodded, still looking at the map. There was a smattering of smaller states besides Mysore and the Maratha kingdom on which Riley had offered no details, but even so, the conclusion was inescapable: The British presidencies surrounding Bombay in the West and Madras in the East lay in a perfect hammer-and-anvil position between the two large native states, a precarious situation.

Riley went on: “You see, my fiancé’s father owns a tea estate in Khandala Hills, here, in the border province,” he pointed at the Eastern frontier. “I understand you have refused to join in any fighting. But I wonder whether I might request that you take me there, so I can make sure she and her family are well and take them away to safety if need be. It should not take us more than a day, Khandala is only about two hours flight from here… and I understand you cannot travel on across the interior anyways, for now.”

Will looked up from the map. He felt uncertain only for a short moment. Riley’s request was perfectly reasonable, small by comparison with going into battle, and he told himself there would be very little risk to Temeraire. Besides, one look at his friend’s face and taut, worried stance told him this was not the moment to quibble.

“Yes, certainly,” he said. “Shall we not leave immediately?”

Riley smiled, looking a little relieved. “Thank you. No, although I hate to say so, we had better wait a little more. The formation has gone in the same direction and Temeraire will fly faster than them with their full armour, but it would be better if my mother does not learn of this. I am under no orders currently and she has no formal command over me, but she has made it clear that she would like me to stay with the _Resolution_ , in case the Maratha navy should try anything underhanded about Bombay harbour.”

Will nodded, shuddering at the thought of disobeying an order – even if phrased as a request – from his own mother, and immediately understood Riley’s sentiment. “If you think it wise… but Tom, I can’t understand, you are always talking of the Company fighting the Marathas or Mysoreans. But are there no army regiments here?”

“No. The East India company keeps its own forces, most of them native mercenaries, and there are no British army regiments stationed in the subcontinent. But many of the Company’s officers have either served in the army themselves already or plan to return to it after gathering experience here, so they know what they are about,” Riley said.

“How about dragons?” Will asked. He knew that strict laws had been enacted in England to regulate fighting dragons. While anyone could hire a dragon as porter, labourer, translator or any other civilian profession, setting them to any sort of attack on person or property was strictly prohibited to anyone outside the Corps. The laws had come about after several calamitous incidents in the more benighted parts of Yorkshire where men had taken to hiring feral dragons to settle personal scores, and the scandal of an enterprising innkeeper in the East End who had decided to raise the stakes of his cock and dog fights by pitting dragons against one another. The resulting duel had reduced a whole street to rubble, the casualty figure appalling even before its inflation by the voracious London press, and had served a terrible blow to the cause of draconic emancipation. Little Will had been quite young at the time, but he remembered his father tense and angry, and even Temeraire not wanting to play. Instead, Laurence and Temeraire had sat up deep into the night with their handful of political allies, discussing how best to proceed. Now hiring a dragon for so much as doorkeeping required a special license, and the London Police had been granted the only exception from the tight regulations, counting four draconic constables.

“The Company has no dragons of their own, except a few unharnessed ones for fetching and carrying,” Riley said. “They never received permission to take on any fighting beasts. I suppose government has no interest in them gaining yet more autonomy than they already have… I’ve had it all in mother’s letters. They are only too happy to forget their string of disasters against the Marathas and the Madras blaze, and like as not would try another attempt at conquest, given encouragement. Not that government wouldn’t let them, if there was any chance of success.”

“So there is none? Why?” Will asked.

“Not as long as the Marathas and Mysoreans maintain their aerial force. They have more dragons than we could ever ship here or supply,” Riley said. “I’ve seen a few on my travels, and you would not think them impressive at first glance – they are smaller than ours, with only a handful of men to a beast. Keeping a dragon is a privilege of the Hindu warrior caste as far as I know, and they don’t like a man of the wrong birth to so much as touch their beasts, which must make it hard to assemble a crew. But they are fierce fighters all of them, and what their dragons lack in size, they make up in numbers."

That moment, someone called out behind them: “Why, can it be Tom Riley? What are you doing here, old sport! Don’t tell me you have that steam monster lurking in the harbour?"

A red-faced naval officer had stuck his head into the room and was now waving at them. Riley greeted him with equal enthusiasm and went across to shake hands. Will followed a little hesitantly, and Riley introduced the gentleman as Commander Roberts of HMS _Kent_ , a former shipmate.

“May I present Mr Laurence, a…. naturalist who has travelled to India with us,” Riley said.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Commander Roberts beamed. “Come, come!” He waved them back into the sitting room where a group of uniformed men had now seated themselves next to the billiards table. “Will you join me for a game? They are all of them very dull this morning, and nobody wants to play.” He thrust the cue into Riley’s hands without waiting for a reply, and set about arranging the balls.

Will was forced to seat himself with the rest of the company, politely nodding at them.

“A _naturalist,_ ” his righthand neighbour, a grey-haired man with a magnificent pair of bristling sideburns, said. "What have you come for? Tigers? Elephants?”

Will threw a glance at Riley, but his friend was taking aim for his first shot. “Dragon-“ he began, then remembered Riley’s caution, “-flies… I… I have heard there are many species in the rivers here, yet unknown to science.”

The younger man seated opposite them, in the same red and black uniform of the East India Company’s army, winked at them and took a draft from his cigar. “Science, eh, fascinating,” he said, “Just what we need more of here, Burns. The light of reason and civilisation, to exorcise the native savagery.” He himself had a rather wild look about him, with a long narrow pair of scars across his forehead and cheek.

 “Splendid indeed,” the older gentleman muttered, then impatiently waved over one of the liveried servants, a native man. “You there! Hurry up and bring us some breakfast! But none of that awful curried stuff, if you please, let us have some eggs and roast beef, and be quick about it. – You will join us, Mr Laurence?”

“I thank you but – no. I have already eaten,” Will said, quickly. His stomach had recovered a little from the smells of the streets outside, even more exotic and deafening than the sights or the noise, but he did not feel able to face roast beef.

“Ah well,” the officer, who had introduced himself as Colonel Burns of the Bombay Army’s 18th Brigade of Foot, told Will when the dish arrived. “I don’t particularly like it either, in the morning, but I make a point of having it because of the squirming it causes them – they have a thing about eating any sort of beef, one of their heathen superstitions. Teaches them a point, doesn’t it?”

He poured a glass of whisky for Will. Will nipped at it politely and again looked over to Riley, but his friend was still usurped by Commander Roberts. Their interest in the game appeared to have flagged somewhat. They were only surreptitiously knocking the balls about, otherwise deep in conversation about naval matters, with Roberts enthusiastically congratulating Riley on being made post.

“No less than the damned Marattas deserve," the scarred officer, whose name was Major Gibson, broke in again contemptuously. “Utter waste to be drilling our army here when we have no use for it. The merchants and our cowardly government have too much say in the affairs of the Company. It is about time we start giving the natives some stick, and we have the means to do so! Their artillery is a pile of rust and the Maratha peshwa owns half his country in debt to the Company. But no, even the lieutenant-governor cowers in the corner at the thought of a year or two of poor revenue, and all the while government demands bigger and bigger cuts of the trade…”

“But, Richard,” Colonel Burns said, wiping his mouth, “remember their dragons. Even Major General Wellesley - now Lord Wellington! - was wholly routed at Assaye, with the 78th of Foot nearly-”

Gibson’s cheeks flushed with colour. “Oh, that stale old excuse!" he interrupted. "As if their jungle beasts were some sort of miracle weapon! A well-aimed cannon to the belly has brought down many a rampaging beast… Look here, I know what I’m talking about!” He pulled back his sleeves to reveal gashed claw-marks across both forearms which matched those on his cheek, and which Will belatedly realized must have been made by a dragon – a small beast most likely, but still grimly impressive. “And besides, if the government cared a fig, they would send us a few dragon eggs for our own use, and we could repay in kind.”

“Ah, what a notion!” Burns chuckled. “You must be joking, Richard! Remember someone would need to sacrifice all his prospects and shackle himself to a _dragon_ …”

“But Sir, isn’t there a covert, right here in Bombay?” Will asked.

Major Gibson blinked at him in irritation, as if he had forgotten his presence. “The covert?” he huffed. “They are more of a hindrance than a help. Roundly refusing to back up any offensive action against the Indian dogs, as if it were any better to wait for their princelings to bury their squabbles and unite to cast us back into the ocean. With that admiral of theirs… I don’t suppose you’ve heard she is a _woman?_ Yes, that is what government makes us put up with!”

Will noticed Riley straightening up, stiffening. “But I have heard the Marathas have attacked our border, only today?” he said quickly, before anything more offensive might be said.

All of a sudden, Gibson smiled. He took up his glass. “Good,” he said. “Good. Well, I am glad that this is what you have heard. But no.” He took a sip, then put the glass down on the silver tray clattering. “It is nothing but a bit of noise and a firecrackers to draw the Marattas away from that heathen temple at Nalkonda where they breed their dragons. Who knows, we may be able to get our hands on an egg or two, finally. We have our own dragon in Canton now, and it is answering damned well against those Chinamen.”

“You mean… egg-stealing?” Will asked, incredulous. He knew nothing of the ways of the Indian aviators, but it was considered a nearly mortal sin among European dragons.

“Odd way to phrase it, but if you want to call it so, yes,” the major said, shrugging his shoulders.

Will would have pressed him further for news of Ning – surely there could be no other dragon in the company’s service at Canton – but he suddenly felt Riley’s hand on his shoulder, gripping down hard.

“I am sorry, gentlemen,” Riley said, “but I am afraid Mr Laurence and I must go now.”

 

\--

 

“Should we not try and catch the formation?” Will panted, hurrying down the sodden street. “We have to tell the admiral it is a ruse.”

“No,” Riley said without turning around so Will could not read his face. It had started raining, or rather pouring torrentially, the monsoon shower starting suddenly with the force of a bucket emptied over their heads. They had been drenched to the skin within moments of leaving the club, but in silent agreement had been in too much of a hurry to find a rickshaw or sedan chair to take them back to the covert, so instead, they were splashing through the puddles. A small torrent had already formed in the middle of the road, strewn petals mingling with street refuse in the swirling water. At least the road had emptied considerably, everyone in their right minds evidently preferring to seek shelter from the elements. Will pressed the map of the Presidency from the club’s smoking room close to his chest and prayed it might still be legible by the time they reached Temeraire.

“But Tom,” he tried again, “the Company cannot intend… in all sincerity… to go _stealing_ eggs? If the Indian dragons are anything like the ones at home, such a thing will bring all of them down in revenge upon our heads!”

“No,” Riley said again, “we have the word of a braggard, that is all. To think that the East India Company should be brazen… _suicidal_ enough to… no, it cannot be entertained.”

“Nevertheless, we should make sure, shouldn’t we?” Will said, detecting the hesitation in Riley’s voice. “Where is this Nalkonda place? … Tom! Listen, we will fetch your fiancé first, and you and her can go somewhere safe, but I need to find this temple.”

They had nearly reached the covert gate. Riley stopped and finally turned around. “No… You’ve seen the map. Nalkonda is closer, and we can hardly stop there on the way back. We must go there now.” 

 

\--

 

“But surely _after_ we have found Miss Kingston, we can check how Lily and Immortalis are doing, and perhaps help them out?” Temeraire tried again.

But to his chagrin, Will did not agree with even this moderate suggestion, saying it was dangerous and risked exposing Riley, who was supposed to stay with his ship although there were no signs of attack on the harbour whatsoever. Temeraire now remembered what a thoroughly vexing thing orders were. Will looked as if he wanted to say something more, but then he only exchanged a glance with Riley, who was wringing out his black neckcloth to tie it afresh, and remained silent. Temeraire gave up. Of course he was more than happy to oblige Captain Riley and go looking for his fiancé. It was certainly better than doing nothing, but in his view, if they went to the border province, he might just as well help out his friends.

“Are you happy to set off at once?” Will asked him. “Are you not tired? Or hungry?”

“Not at all; I am very well,” Temeraire said. He had just completed a refreshing nap in the lovely pavilion where they were all presently assembled, and his breakfast had been lavishly spiced. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, the air purged of dust at least, and the sky over Bombay looked inviting.

Will agreed with Riley that they would fetch him from the _Resolution_ and Riley went to change his clothes and make his preparations. The crew came running from the covert after Will had gone to summon them again, their enthusiasm for doing anything of use equal to Temeraire’s even after Will had told them they had only been asked to provide assistance to a planter’s family and would not go near the fighting. Temeraire ducked down low when his harness was brought out, to make it easier for his small crew to put it on him. All of them helped, even Mr Ingram, while Will hurried away to find a dry shirt. Not half an hour later, they were on the wing.

Temeraire permitted himself to fly one circle over the sprawling antheap of the city to peer closely at a beautiful mosque with gleaming golden domes and turrets and a temple with an intricately carved and painted stepped roof. Will conferred, low, with Riley and Mr Ingram over a map which they were handing around very carefully on account of it having become very wet, and finally called: “Broad off starboard, Temeraire, straight for the hills.”

Temeraire tore his eyes away from the lovely buildings and adjusted his course. He followed a meandering river. The land below them was still flat, the formerly barren ground blushing green with the monsoon season’s first growth. There were villages dotted about, tilled fields, stands of trees. The sky itself looked empty except for scattered flocks of white birds, not a dragon in sight. But within an hour the landscape grew hillier, the vegetation lush and the air thick with mist, until the first table mountains of the border province caught them almost by surprise, rising from the low-hanging clouds. The river, a lazy ribbon in the plains, was barely recognizable now: a multitude of small brooks and waterfalls. They were all of them dripping wet again although no rain had fallen, the air itself so humid that it was impossible to tell where a cloud stopped and free air began. Temeraire enjoyed the refreshing cool water pooling to run over his hide, but he could not quite banish the gnawing thought that their small store of powder was likely entirely drenched by now, which would not do at all for helping Lily’s formation.

“Are you sure we have not mistaken our course?” Temeraire heard Will ask, and both Lieutenant Ingram and Captain Riley answering, after another look at the drenched map, that they believed not, and that these were the Nalkonda Hills, a name Temeraire had never heard, and that they had now entered Maratha territory.

“Are we there yet?” Temeraire asked.

“No, my dear, it is another thirty miles due south to Khandala,” Will answered.

“South?” Temeraire asked, and could not keep a shocked note from his voice. “And you are quite sure we haven’t gone wrong? I have been going east all this time! Will, we don’t have time for this! We might be too late for joining-“ He broke off, and indignantly shook the water off his neck. Then he swung himself around due South and beat his wings faster.

“No! Temeraire, wait!” Will called. “Pray go lower, we need to have a better look at those hills!”

“But why would we?” Temeraire asked, confused.

“He is right,” Ingram said, “There is nothing here. Those Indian temples are large and painted like pastry-cakes, you wouldn’t miss them…”

“No… no, let us have a look,” Will said, “Temeraire, it is probably nothing, but Riley and me heard a rumour about a robbery on a temple that the East India Company is planning. I just want to make sure there is indeed nothing to it.”

“But surely that is no business of ours,” Temeraire said, increasingly confused, “It is not nice to go stealing things, but I am sure the Indian dragons can defend their temples very well if they keep any treasure there, and what else would the Company be looking for?”

“Temeraire,” Will said, his voice sounding a little odd, “I am… I don’t want to plant false worries in your head, but… it really would be disastrous if the Company robbed that place. But they have no dragons of their own, so if they saw you, they would probably listen and be convinced to stay away,” by which, Temeraire thought, Will meant he would frighten the thieves away.

“If we must,” he grumbled, unconvinced. He turned back into the forested vale, skirting the ground more closely. There was no temple in sight, nor any sign of human habitation, only shrubs, trees, rocks and waterfalls. They had almost crossed the full length of it when Teddy Hawkes suddenly cried out: “Captain – I mean, Mr Laurence, there’s a path right there!” pointing to the starboard hillside.

Temeraire went closer, and indeed, there were steps carved into the black rock of the mountainside.

“Will you land a moment?” Will asked, and immediately climbed off his back when Temeraire had done so.

“Tom, look at this!” he called, “There is a path here”

Riley and Ingram climbed down to join him, and Temeraire craned his neck warily. Will was pointing to a further set of stone steps further along the mountainside, this time leading a short distance downhill to skirt a large boulder jutting from the hillside. A small stone wall had been built to shield the path from the steep drop below. The ground was muddy and churned by the rain, a pattern of fresh footprints clearly visible in the mud.

“Why, a path can lead anywhere,” Temeraire grumbled. “It might go to a village.”

“There is no village on this map,” Will said, doubtfully, “Although the survey was likely imperfect.”

The path crossed a rocky riverbed, followed the side of the hill for a while and then climbed steeply, with many steps to ascend to the hill's summit. Here, it suddenly widened. There were two large stone elephants with weathered trunks and tusks wrapped in frayed orange silk, their heads painted with powders running into puddles of white, red and yellow from the rain. Behind these silent guardians, a panoramic platform overlooked the valley and there was a single smooth and monolithic piece of rock its centre, of markedly different colour than the hill’s black basalt.

Will walked through the gap between the stone elephants, running a finger over an inscription at its base that Temeraire could not read. “How very interesting,” he said, “These carvings must be hundreds, if not a thousand years old! And there are reliefs on the floor, too… and the view… Tom, have a look at this!”

Riley followed him, more slowly, with a hand on his pistol and cautious looks at the surrounding hills.

“Will, come back,” Temeraire called anxiously, “The path continues up there!”

“Just a moment,” Will said. He had walked to the edge of the platform and looked at the scenery in fascination.

Behind him, the rock opened a pair of yellow eyes.

The next moment, it unfurled into the shape of a dragon, hissing angrily and puffing out a lurid eye-like display of reds and purples on its neck, stark against the drab grey colour of his back and wings. His scales were thinned with age.

Will stumbled backwards against the low wall surrounding the platform and brought up his pistol, but it was too wet and would not fire. Riley had more luck, if one would call it so. His shot aimed for the head took the dragon in one of the brightly coloured neck-folds. The riflemen took aim behind them, their balls striking deep into the thick scaled hide. The beast jerked its head back yelling in pain and anger, his voice echoing far through the valley. He raised a talon to claw at them. Riley left off trying to reload his pistol, and instead drew his sword.

Temeraire sprang forward, roaring an angry challenge, with not quite the force of the Divine Wind but enough to make the smaller dragon cower for a moment. But there were three more beasts tearing along the valley now, in bright and banner-like colours. Temeraire had to wheel around to snap at one of them, then throw himself back the other way to parry another making a dash for his crew huddled together behind one of the stone elephants. He managed to grasp at the purple beast’s neck and jerked it about a few times. Rifle fire exploded on the dragon’s back and he felt the sharp bites of the musket balls biting his hide – he had only dimly registered the purple dragon’s magnificently gilded harness and the golden plate on its forehead, but clearly he was carrying a crew. Temeraire’s own riflemen had managed to reload and get of another volley when Temeraire let go of the Indian beast, cries of pain issuing from his attacker’s back to indicate at least some had found their target.

“Temeraire!” Lieutenant Ingram was shouting, “We are outmatched! You need to get away!” He was already herding all the crew back aboard Temeraire.

Temeraire roared at one of the Indian dragons, a scarlet and indigo beast, and managed to send it sliding down the drenched and muddy hillside, yelling angrily as it tried to claw for purchase and found none. But the other two had rallied now and were coming at him. It was hopeless. Temeraire swung back around to snatch Will and Riley away from the grey beast, and froze.

The old dragon ponderously unfolded his wings, bright turquoise iridescent membranes, and launched itself from the edge of the encircling stone wall, Will and Riley grasped tightly in his talons.

 

\--

 

Will dodged the Indian dragon’s head by throwing himself nearly flat. The great jaws snapped shut barely inch from his head and the dragon’s stale hot breath made him cough. The pistol clattered to the ground uselessly and he scrambled backwards on all fours. Temeraire was hemmed in closely by two of the Indian beasts, who harried him skilfully and stopped him gaining any ground on the platform. One of the massive tusks of the stone elephants had been knocked off by their ferocious struggle. The old grey dragon was coming at them again, blocking the path back to the relative safety of Temeraire’s back. Riley tried a blow at its wing-edge. The polished steel of the naval sabre barely nicked the thick scaly hide, but the point caught the delicate wing membrane. The dragon jerked its wing up with a howl to lick at it with a long and strangely blue-coloured tongue. Will struggled back to his feet and Riley caught him by the arm and pulled him along, in a headlong dash right between the forelegs of the beast, in a desperate attempt to get back to Temeraire. The Indian dragon almost bent double on itself in its wild attempt to snap at them, dark blood dripping from the bullet-hole in its ruff. They were almost through, Temeraire clawing ferociously at a purple dragon whom he had caught by the neck. But behind them, the old Indian beast had managed to turn itself around with awkward, gouty steps. A claw came down at them, knocking Riley to the ground. Will called Tom’s name, but he did not reply. Will stopped dead, hurried back to Riley's side and tried to pull him up. But the Indian dragon had spread his wings around them like a tent, hissing low and angry. The membranes had an iridescent peacock-like sheen, beautiful if it hadn’t been so terrible. Will groped for the sword that had fallen out of Riley’s hand and blindly stabbed at the dragon’s face. Outside the dome of the shimmering wing-membranes, he heard Temeraire roaring. The grey dragon hissed, low, and then suddenly his claws had closed around both of them and gathered them up against his rough bony chest. Will lost hold of the hilt. The dragon made two awkward, chicken-like hops towards the edge of the platform, then it unfurled its wings fully and leapt out into the valley below, the air whistling in Will’s ears and his stomach jumping to his throat.

They were violently jerked up and down a few times as the dragon beat his wings to gain speed. Then he took a narrow curve, and Will at once lost his bearings.

“Tom?” he croaked, and Riley muttered something in reply, incomprehensible in the howling of the wind. The dragon gave a low displeased rumble and shifted his claws, the sharp tip of one talon digging deep into Will’s thigh, but for the moment, Will was barely conscious of the pain, only relieved at the sign of life from Riley. He could not think what the dragon could intend by their abduction – if he wanted to kill them without interference from Temeraire, he might have simply opened his claws there and then to drop them.

There was a roar behind them – Temeraire’s voice. Will tried to crane his head, but it was quite hopeless, he could not see. A second roar, shattering loud, flattened the bushes underneath them and rippled through the high grass, sending dirt and small pebbles spraying, and a faint noise rang in Will’s ears even after it had subsided. Temeraire had roared a warning against the ground. The Indian beast flew a sharp turn and partly opened his claws. Will could not stifle a small scream as he slipped down and found himself clutching at his captor against the terrifying prospect of being dropped down into the void. Blood was streaming from his palms now where they had slid along the sharp edge of the dragon’s claws.

He caught a brief and disheartening glimpse of Temeraire tearing along the valley, trying hard to catch up with them, with two remaining Indian beasts hard at his heels. They were skilfully harrying his wing tips and dropping to stay out of shooting range - clearly trained beasts, not marauding ferals.

Then the Indian dragon suddenly gathered them closer again, made a sharp curve, and Temeraire fell out of sight. The manoeuvre jarred his prisoners violently and one of Will’s boots came loose, tumbling away into the void. Will heard Temeraire roar once again, further in the distance, and then silence fell, broken only by the screeching of monkeys in the trees below.

Fear clutched at Will. What had happened to Temeraire? He remembered reading once that some Indian breeds produced a deadly venom that could stun and even kill a dragon. The next moment, he called himself to order. There was no use despairing. He pushed off his other boot, and then, after another minute or so, he scrambled out of his wet and clinging coat, watching it billow out briefly as it fell down to the ground. It was a scanty track, but the best they could do.

A short while later, the dragon finally dived and landed, casting them onto the ground with an air of contempt. Will lay still for a moment, then he staggered to his feet. Next to him, Riley limped away a few steps, then fell forward on his knees and bent over retching violently. He wore a bruise on his forehead where the grey dragon had struck him down, and for one moment Will wondered whether he might have been concussed or taken some worse injury still, but then Riley got up, spat and said: “Worse than a typhoon round the Cape. Where are we?”

Will could not blame him. He had flown with Temeraire countless times, including once during a bad thunderstorm when he, Horatio and Temeraire had been caught off-guard by the weather on a lengthy expedition through the Peaks, his father admonishing them in the sternest terms when they had finally crept back into the entrance hall drenched and bedraggled, so his stomach was hardened, but even he felt weak and sick after being tossed about so much.

They looked around. They were standing on a narrow rock platform built against a hillside, similar to the one where misfortune had first befallen them, with a similar carved pair of stone animals– this time depicting scaly rearing bodies, depicting snakes or perhaps dragons, it was hard to tell from behind. But on the opposite side of the terrace, there was a huge and ancient rock-carved portal, high enough that even Temeraire might have stepped through without hunching his shoulders, which opened straight into the hill.

“A cave” Riley murmured. “Good lord, we will be swallowed up from the face of the earth.”

Will eyed the portal. The carvings surrounding it were ancient and mysterious, a giddying display of tangled bodies, humans, animals and mythical beasts. But before his eyes could start to make sense of the display, ten or more stern-faced warriors, turbaned and armed with pistols and curved swords, came spilling out of the gate. Two men sprang forward to shackle their hands, and they were herded into the cave.

The inside was magnificently decorated too, and took the shape of a vast columned hall. Beams of light fell inside through large narrow windows cut directly into the hillside. At the far end of the cathedral-like room, there was the gleam of a golden many-armed idol framed in flowers and tallow candles, but before they got close enough to discern any details, they were pushed into a narrower side corridor. Their captors marched them along with much shouting, abuse in a language Will could not understand, and blows to their backs with the flat of their swords, through yet another pitch-black corridor and finally to another chamber with a wrought-iron gate. They were shoved inside, stumbling onto the hard stone ground, and the grille was shut behind them. The shouting and footsteps fell away again.

Will pushed himself up with an effort. One of his wrists hurt badly where he had tried to break his fall, awkwardly striking the floor with his bound hands. He lifted his wrists to his teeth and tried to work on the knots, but it was hopeless. He gave up and forced himself to think sensibly.

Temeraire would come for them. He had seen them being taken. Perhaps he had managed, somehow, to shake off the other dragons and pursue their captor. It was only a question of time and holding out long enough.

The room was dimly lit with light filtering in from a gallery of windows above their heads, too far to climb up. A strange smell hung in the air, metallic, sweet and acrid all at the same time. It stirred a faint and unpleasant memory of the anatomy cellars in Oxford, where Will had fled from the sight of a saw and chisel being taken to the corpse of a Grey Copper. It had been no use telling himself that the dragon had died peacefully of old age in the breeding grounds, he had not been able to face it.

“Tom,” he whispered, trying to quell the rising sense of dread in his chest, “How far have we been taken, do you think?”

“Not too far,” Riley answered. “We cannot have been going for longer than twenty minutes, perhaps thirty, and that old beast wasn’t a fast flier. Although whether that is going to make an ounce of difference to our chances of being found again in a cave, I am not sure…”

He fell silent as footsteps approached again, light human footfall and the heavier tread and clatter of claws that heralded a dragon approaching. A hissing and rumbling dragon’s voice was speaking rapidly, followed by the human reply in more measured tones. Then, suddenly, a torch lit the chamber floor in a golden circle as the pair rounded the corner. The dragon caught sight of the prisoners.

He threw himself bodily against the iron bars, hissing and roaring in a fit of fury. The gate groaned and rattled. Will and Riley edged backwards.

Will stumbled over something soft and heavy and fell to the floor again, jarring his wrist a second time as he landed in a puddle of something cold, wet and sticky, but he could not pay it any mind. He stared at the rabid dragon still clawing and scrabbling at the grille. The small orange beast was of a sleek, snake-like configuration not unlike Temeraire, and his forehead was adorned with a gold-plated triangular plaque framed in tassels. The wild, maddened expression his eyes was unlike anything Will had ever seen, and in the dragon’s hissing, guttural speech, Will could only discern the word _British._

The lean bearded man who had accompanied the dragon put a hand to the beast’s side and stroked him, mumbling low, comforting words. He wore a wrapped sort of calico tunic with a broad belt into which his curved sword and pistol were tucked, wide trousers and a turban with a golden pin, the loose end of the wrapped cloth hanging over one shoulder. Gradually his dragon fell back, and finally only growled low in his throat and paced behind him with the air of a caged tiger as the man spoke.

“You came to fetch them away,” he said in English, with a lilting accent, “But there is nobody left to take.” He stepped closer, the circle of torch-light creeping further into the chamber.

With looked behind him and nearly screamed - he had stumbled on a dead body. It lay stretched out in a puddle of dark curdled blood, its chest carved open by a talon-slash so neat it would have rivalled an anatomist’s work. The colour of the torn uniform was hard to make out in the torchlight, but the black and silver trimmings were exactly like those he had seen in Bombay – the uniform of the East India Company’s army.

“Take them?” Will managed, swallowing down hard on the sour bile rising in his throat, “We did not come to take anyone! Sir, we are not allies of the East India company. We came here to try and stop them from stealing-“

“ _Stealing? Stealing?_ ” the dragon hissed, his voice hoarse with pain. Will was surprised to hear him speak English. “No! Do you not know what they have done? The English dogs have _broken_ them! All of them!” This was followed a by long, mournful howl.

“Broken them…?” Will echoed.

Instead of a reply, the Maratha aviator stepped closer, his unblinking face almost touching the metal bars now, and the back of the chamber became visible in the flickering torchlight.

Will and Riley stared in disbelief.

The back of the chamber was as magnificently carved as the main hall had been, with tangled snake-like creatures and floral motifs wreathed across the walls. But the tumbling chaos continued across the floor, in a macabre, distorted mirror image of the riot of bodies and wings on the walls: It was strewn with human corpses and broken dragon eggs.

“Are there any more of you coming?” the aviator demanded.

“Sir, we do not know,” Riley said, when Will remained mute, too choked with horror to reply. “We are not of their party, and did not come here to provide any assistance to this vile act.”

They man gave a short, spiteful laugh. “You brought a dragon to Nalkonda, while your evil accomplices crept inside the temple to break our innocent eggs, ready to snatch the murderers away once your evil deed was done.”

“No! This is not true. We have nothing to do with the Company. My name is Captain Thomas Riley, of Her Majesty’s Ship the _Resolution,_ and this is Mr William Laurence, a traveller on his way to China. We only came into Bombay this morning! My mother is Admiral Harcourt, who is in command of the Aerial covert at Bombay. I assure you she has never had anything but the welfare of any dragon in the Presidency at heart, and would condemn-“

“Your aerial squadron attacked our border fort at Khandala, alongside the Company’s dogs,” the Indian interrupted him, coldly. “Otherwise your slaughterers would never have penetrated so far.”

“No!” Riley protested, “There must be a mistake! They did not attack! They were called upon to defend-“

The dragon hissed violently, cutting him off.

“No more of your lies!” the aviator said, “I would open this door and let Shakunta finish you off, but that would be too kind, too kind by far.”

With that, he cast the torch down on the floor like an odd threat, turned and waved at his dragon to follow him. Shakunta gave them one last spiteful growl, then he followed his captain, claws clattering on the stone floor.

When they had gone, Riley reached his bound hands under the door and awkwardly groped for the torch, finally managing to pull it towards them. He held it over his head, illuminating the massacre around them.

“Tom,” Will murmured, “Tom, look at this.”

He crouched behind the dead body of the soldier, amidst the wreckage of a large greenish egg speckled in delicate ochre, and cradled the curled body of a dead dragonet, small enough to fit in both his palms.

“The light of reason and civilisation,” Riley said, spitefully. He waited as Will staggered to his feet, holding the torch, then they began a grim and methodical search of the cavern.

There were many more broken eggs, most towards the rear end of the chamber where rock-cut niches in the walls, padded with silken cushions, had likely held them. The shattered pieces of shell cracked under their feet and the floor was slippery with egg-fluid. They counted eight slain Company soldiers. In Bombay, Will had seen mostly native men in the uniforms of the Company’s rank and file, but notably, all the dead in the chamber seemed to have European features, or at least the ones not mauled beyond recognition. All of them had carried padded pouches, and there was a long torn rope on the floor.

“They must have come in through those windows with an intention to steal, just like that Gibson fellow said,” Riley said quietly, “And when they found they had been discovered, they decided to destroy what they could not take.”

He turned over a bloodied corpse with his foot and let out a small cry of triumph – he had found a folding razor. He sawed through the rope tethering Will’s hands and in turn, Will cut Riley free.

It was little more than a moral improvement to their situation, since there could still be no hope of escape – the metal grille was firmly locked, the main portal no doubt guarded by Maratha dragons, and the strange skylights too far above their heads for any hope of reaching up climbing, even if the intruders’ rope hadn’t been slashed to shreds by the angry defenders. The torch burnt itself out and they had to continue their survey by carrying anything of interest to the beam of light falling in through the roof. They found nearly thirty small dead dragonets, some tiny and barely developed, one large enough to have nearly been ready to hatch, a brutal blow for any aerial force, accomplished at the cost of a small battalion of foot soldiers – an unfeeling soul might still have called it a coup.

After a short while their hands were slick with gore and now it was Will’s turn to drag himself away to a corner and be sick. He bent forward retching even after there was nothing left in his stomach, his head full of images he thought would torment him to the end of his days – almost a kindness that it was going to be a short period now, as soon as Shakunta returned. In the darkness of the corner, he imagined the outline of an egg – a large unbroken egg of a pure pearlescent white. He put out a hand to touch the comforting illusion and jerked back in surprise when he found it solid and cool, not a hallucination at all.

The egg had been thrust down from its niche like the others, but through some lucky twist of fate seemed to have landed on a bundle of the silken wrappings and rolled away without smashing apart. Will gingerly reached for it again, the cool smoothness comforting under his fingers. His sprained wrist complained when he lifted it up – it was heavy, very heavy, and he had to brace it against his chest with both arms to carry it to the light. Turning it over, he found one side badly cracked in a long line running along half its length, the membranes glistening behind the breached shell – intact, but drying up fast. Riley stepped to his side to have a look.

“It is alive!” Will said, “We must get the shell sealed up again. Will you hold it a moment?” He handed the egg to Riley without waiting for an answer and went away, looking around urgently. He found a few half-burned tallow candles in an alcove next to the egg niches. But they had no flame to melt them. It was no use. He would have to shout for Shakunta and her companion, or any of their captors, to come and try whatever they could to preserve the last egg.

When he returned, Riley was cradling the egg against his chest and bending over it with a startled expression. “Will,” he said, “Can you hear this, too?”

Will put an ear to the egg. He held his breath when he heard what Riley meant. There was a faint hissing and scraping noise inside, growing fiercer with every passing moment. Then the egg rocked in Riley’s arms, and he almost dropped it. He hastily set it down on the floor.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, “Ought we not call someone?”

But it was too late. A long, almost translucent claw penetrated the crack, tearing the membranes apart, followed by a pointed snout. Then the white shell split apart, and a trembling and premature dragonet drew a labored first breath.

 

\---

 

The wounded man whimpered a little when they put him on Temeraire’s back.

“What has happened to you? Have you been trying to steal?” Temeraire demanded one final time, cocking his head around. But the soldier in the torn uniform of the East India Company only stammered incoherent words, something of a temple and a maddened dragon who had bitten him, and that nobody else had gotten away.

“But _why_ did you go there?” Lieutenant Ingram asked, holding out a bottle of brandy as a reward for information, “This is Maratha territory!” But the man only went back to clutching his mangled arm, and would not even let Mr Laithwaite take a look at it.

Temeraire huffed in exasperation. The soldier would only be a nuisance with his shouting and yelping, but they could not leave him to his certain doom lying on a hillside to be found by the Indian dragons – Temeraire knew exactly what Laurence would have to say to that. But he also knew what Laurence would have to say to Temeraire letting an unpleasant Indian dragon snatch Little Will away, and Captain Riley along with him.

But they still had not found any trace to show where Will and Riley had been taken. The Indian dragons had finally been frightened away after a final display of the Divine Wind had brought a towering hillside down crumbling like wet bricks. Temeraire had tried to pursue them, hoping they might go back to the place where the prisoners had been taken, but they had dashed off in entirely different directions, and he had lost his way. They were still trespassing on Maratha territory, so the dragons would likely come back with reinforcements, and even though he hated to admit as much, Temeraire thought he might not be able to hold six or seven of them off at the same time. Even the three had been a struggle.

He had briefly gotten his hopes up when they had found the injured soldier, but the man would not give them any directions nor useful information. As far as Temeraire was concerned, finding him had only made things worse, as the man’s very presence confirmed the Company had indeed been doing something underhanded, exactly as Will had feared. And it looked like they had come too late to prevent anything at all.

He cast a glance at his back to make sure all his crew were assembled there – Isabella nursing a gash to the shoulder where a stray ball from one of the Indian crews had grazed her, but no other injuries to tell – and went aloft again, skimming low over the valley floor.

“There!” Isabella yelled, some twenty minutes later, “What is that, by that stream?”

Temeraire immediately changed his course and landed next to the stand of trees she had indicated – and indeed, there was a boot tangled in its upper branches. Temeraire growled to drive away the screeching band of monkeys who had come to investigate it, and small Teddy Hawkes scrambled onto the thin branches to take it out.

“It looks like Will’s. We must search the valley,” Temeraire decided, “Perhaps they are held very close by!”

Lieutenant Ingram nodded, although his face was not optimistic. They left the wounded soldier under a few tall trees with Mr Laithwaite to watch over him and their baggage. All the crew fanned out on foot, with a gun each so they could send up a shot if assistance was required. The hillsides looked tidy enough from the air, but on the ground, a sense of proportion suddenly became evident. The humans stood to their hips in the long grass, and all but disappeared under some of the shrubbery. “I wonder whether there are tigers about,” Mr Marlow had whispered before they set off, but quickly fallen silent again when Isabella had glared at him, evidently not wanting to be outdone by a girl.

Temeraire applied himself to scouring the treetops. For a long time, nothing was heard apart from the screeching of the monkeys and a low curse every now and then as the men hacked their way through the brush. Then two of them shouted out almost at once. Teddy Hawkes had scaled a boulder further up on the hillside and was waving something over his head: he had found a second boot. Temeraire picked him up quickly and then dashed to where Mr Marlow was calling out urgently, and now firing a shot into the air.

He was standing in the middle of the small lively stream and pointing where it went tumbling away over a rock edge in a waterfall.

“There was a man!” the rifleman said, pointing, his face utter confusion, “He stood there a moment ago – and now he is gone!”

Temeraire did not wait for any further explanation, but jumped over the edge of the rock-edge, fanned out his wings and hovered, pointing his head through the curtain of the waterfall.

“Oww!” He fell back. Something had bitten his nose, sharply. “Will!” he called, “Will, are you there?”

“No,” a voice answered him in English, and now Temeraire could make out the blurry shape of a man clinging to the rock behind the curtain of the water, climbing down with practised skill.

Temeraire reached out and picked him off the wall. The man gave an angry shout and stabbed at Temeraire again with his weapon – a long curved knife – but Temeraire barely felt it dig into his leg. He was seeing ghosts.

“Tharkay?” he asked, thoroughly confused, “Is it you?”

But the apparition was not Tharkay. He had the same flat nose, high cheekbones and black almond-shaped eyes, his skin only perhaps a shade darker, but he was a good deal younger. He wore only a torn pair of trousers and a shirt, no coat at all, and gave his name as Min Bahadur, formerly of the Company’s Sirmoor Battalion of Gurkha Rifles.

“Formerly?” Temeraire asked, after he had set him down by their small encampment, “But what are you now?”

“I refused to follow a blasphemous order,” Mr Bahadur said, holding his head up straight.

The soldier, whom they had thought asleep or unconscious, roused a little and lifted his head. “Treacherous dog,” he rasped, catching sight of Mr Bahadur, “Deserter! Gurkha scum!”

“That is enough!” Lieutenant Ingram said and gave the soldier a push with the tip of his boot. “What were your orders?”

“I am sure you know,” Mr Bahadur said, thin-lipped and wary with a look at Ingram’s uniform. “You may shoot me now for deserter or you may let me go. I will have no more part in this bloody business.”

“No, we do not know anything!” Temeraire cried, “All we have heard is the East India Company was planning to rob a temple, but we do not know where it is, and what they were after, so we came here to look and stop them, and now the Indian dragons have taken Will and Captain Riley prisoner. Where is this temple? Oh, I must go and explain to their dragons that Will and Riley have nothing to do with it at all!”

The Gurkha looked at him confused and shook his head. “I cannot show you to the temple,” he said, “It is supposed to remain a secret, and I will not heap any more sin on my shoulders which would curse me for uncountable lives”

“But what is this sin you are talking about?” Temeraire asked, “Were they trying to steal treasure?”

“No,” Mr Bahadur said, frowning. “So you really do not know? They were trying to steal dragon eggs.”

Temeraire stared at him.

Egg-stealing! Why ever had Will not told him? Temeraire growled, and could not help dragging an angry furrow in the ground. He could have gone straight to the Company headquarters, if he had known, and demanded an explanation from whoever had issued so contemptible an order. Suddenly it seemed no wonder at all that the Indian dragons were so angry. And no doubt Will and Captain Riley would suffer for it. Temeraire’s eye fell on the soldier, who had gone back to whimpering, and his claw went up almost of its own accord.

“Temeraire!” Mr Ingram called sharply, stepping in front of the man, “Control yourself!” And, turning to Mr Bahadur: “Sir, I am deeply shocked to learn of this. It does explain the native beast’s fury. By my honour, Temeraire’s… companion only led us here to attempt to thwart a robbery of some sort that they had heard about in Bombay – I now see it was foolish of me not to inquire further. The Maratha beasts have taken two of our company, Temeraire’s companion one of them. They are blameless, and Temeraire will not leave without them. So we must make an attempt to find them, and I must implore you to tell us where this temple lies.”

“If they were taken, they will be dead by now,” Mr Bahadur said. “And you will be too, if you go near the place.”

“No!” Temeraire howled. “I will not believe it until I see it!”

That moment, Teddy Hawkes came back running towards them, beaming with pride and holding something over his head. “Look what I found, Temeraire!”

It was Will’s coat. Mr Ingram took it and reached a hand into one of the pockets, pulling out the crumpled letter from Mr Hammond and the handsome little gem Tharkay had sent them. Looking at it, Temeraire felt his spirits lifted a little. Tharkay would not give up so easily. He had found Laurence again, several times, against quite overwhelming odds, and the very memory of it made it seem cowardly to be dispirited. “Pray show Mr Bahadur the letter,” he told lieutenant Ingram, “So he can see for himself we have nothing to do with the Company!”

But Mr Bahadur quite ignored the letter, and instead only stared at the silver pendant.

“It is Will’s,” Temeraire explained, “The one the dragons took!”

The gurkha reached out to touch it with the tips of his fingers, brought them to his forehead and bent his head low, murmuring something. “It is a prayer box like the people of my tribe make,” he said, after a pause, “I have not seen one in a long time… how did your companion come by it?”

“Why, Tharkay sent it to Will. Mr Tharkay is his godfather, and I suppose he must have got it from his mother. She was Nepalese, you know.” And then, valiantly, he added: “I am sure Will would not mind you having it, if you help us rescue him.” He nodded to Mr Ingram, who tried to hand it to Mr Bahadur.

But the gurkha backed away startled, his hands raised almost defensively. “No, no! I cannot take another man’s…. I see now,” he murmured, addressing nobody in particular except perhaps the small silver box, “I will do penance for my crime in bringing them this far, and take them to witness the crime committed there, and if we all perish in the attempt, it is the will of _dharma_.”

 

\---

 

The dragonet was about the size of a house cat. Her eyes were shut tightly and seemed too large for the limp and drooping head. Her wings were crumpled flat against her sides, and she made small squeaking noises as she crept across the floor, blind and wet from the egg-fluid.

Will and Riley exchanged a startled look. Then Riley knelt down and reached out a hand towards the blind newborn. She whimpered and her dark forked tongue came out flickering.

“Watch her claws,” Will murmured.

But Riley had already edged closer to the dragonet. She thrust her snout into his palm. He smiled and stroked her head. Then – Will almost cried out in alarm – he scooped both hands under her small shivering body and took her up, slipping her under his shirt to keep her warm.

To Will’s utter surprise, she tolerated it, and even seemed to enjoy it. She curled up against Riley’s chest making small wheezing noises and hooked one of her long foreclaws around his neck sloth-fashion. Riley carefully carried her to the sliver of light falling in from the ceiling. Her head was a pure, unbroken sky-blue.

They sat back against the metal bars afterwards, hungry and thirsty, and watched the light travel across the floor of their dungeon. The smell of blood grew overpowering and mingled with the stench of rotting flesh. Angry flies were gathering on the carnage.

Will would not have thought it possible to sleep a few feet away from a mangled corpse, but with nothing else to look at for hours, even the horror of the jutting bones and torn lungs gradually paled to a numb indifference. He drifted into an uneasy slumber and the grisly sight grew abstract, not connected to any once-living or breathing person at all, but only part of a nightmare from which he should awake any moment now when a college servant would knock on his door with a change of fresh linen and a cup of morning tea.

He was instead woken by Riley, who urgently tapped his shoulder to show him the dragonet had opened her eyes. They were a dark ruby-red and shone with reflected light like a cat’s. She was busily thwarting his attempts at shielding her from the sight of the room, snaking her long thin neck between his hands or peering over his shoulder every time he tried to bring her face to the wall. Her dark tongue flickered out curiously, taking the scent, but she seemed not in the least inclined to leave Riley.

“She must be hungry. I wish we had…” Riley began unhappily, and finished, rather unconvincingly: “That is to say, I wish they would come for her.”

“Can she not fit under the bars?” Will asked, “Now that she can see we can let her go, and surely the Marathas can wish her no harm."

Riley shook his head. “No, I tried, but the gaps are too small. I have been thinking. They must hatch their beasts out here, let them flap around for a bit, and try to get them to take a handler. Then they open this gate and let them into the temple. At least I imagine so. I have never seen a harnessing. Have you, perchance?”

Will shook his head. “I have only heard stories.”

“So have I. Will you indulge me?”

Will nodded, and they whiled away some more time by recounting the tales of Temeraire’s and Lily’s hatchings, striving to sound cheerful against the dark of the night creeping in from all sides. The dragonet burrowed back under Riley’s shirt until only her head peeped out, eyes half-lidded and her long bat-like ears flicking a little with the rise and fall of their voices.

The Marathas returned early the next morning, but there was no sign of Shakunta or her companion. Instead, a priest in a long white wrapped skirt edged in green and gold, a white shawl over one shoulder and thin cord hung over the other, entered, followed by a band of ragged-looking servants. Will and Riley quickly put their hands together with the sleeves pulled down to give the superficial impression of still being shackled, but found themselves roundly ignored. The priest and his band even left the wrought-iron door standing wide open, silent testament to their slim chances of escape with the anterior chambers of the temple likely full of soldiers and their dragons. The priest issued commands and his workmen set about busily hauling out the bodies of the slain soldiers. Next, they came back carrying great logs of wood and baskets of dried branches and kindling, which they proceeded to heap up in a stack in the middle of the wide domed room, covering it with white sheets. Under the watchful eyes of the priests, they gathered up all the small dead dragons and carefully put them atop the pyre.

Will and Riley watched in increasing bewilderment.

“They cannot intend to light a fire in the middle of a cave!” Riley whispered. “There is no proper vent! It’ll smoke out all their temple, too…”

“Even more reason we should speak now, for her sake," Will said, nodding to the dragonet under Riley’s shirt, the bulge of her small body moving almost imperceptibly with each of her sleeping breaths.

Riley said nothing at first and only stared darkly at the pile of firewood. Then, with what seemed an effort of will, he nodded. He rose, very cautiously, and beckoned one of the workmen to step closer. “Gentlemen, please, we have found a survivor.”

He extricated the dragonet, who awoke with a startled hiss and sleepily tried to claw at his shirt to hold on, drawing out a thread with the tip of her long talon. The servant turned. His eyes widened in alarm and he fell back with a terrified scream as if Riley had tried to thrust a lit bomb into his hands. He threw himself to the floor and clapped both hands over his eyes, stammering loudly and rapidly.

Will, to his surprise, found he understood what the workman said – perhaps hailing from a different part of the Maratha empire, he spoke Hindi. “He says he begs the Divine one’s pardon for casting his untouchable’s eyes on her, and implores the Goddess to send lighting to burn him up instantly as he deserved, should he have profaned the dragon,” he whispered to Riley.

“Indeed?” Riley gathered the dragonet back against his chest, confused. The priest shouted something which sent the workmen bounding out of the cavern in a frenzy, shielding their eyes from the sight of the dragon. The priest alone remained and stepped in front of them. There were three white lines drawn across his forehead which gave him a very martial air despite his half-nakedness and lack of weapons. He spread his shawl on the floor and pointed at the little dragon, then at the cloth. He did not speak, but the gesture was plain enough.

Riley tried to put the writhing dragonet down, stroking her head and whispering consolingly until she sat on the white cloth. The priest squatted down before her and began to chant.

She stared at him confused for a moment, then she hissed angrily, jumped, and, flapping her small wings, huddled back against Riley’s legs. The priest interrupted his prayer. Then he raised his hands imploringly and spoke to the dragonet, beckoning to the shawl, to no visible effect. She only dug her claws tighter into Riley’s boots.

The priest got to his feet, picked up the shawl, now sullied with the dirt and gore of the cavern floor, and hurried away, slamming the door shut and shouting as he ran.

“Can you understand what _he_ is saying?” Riley murmured. But Will shook his head.

The priest returned a short while later leading a small procession. There were three warriors in lavish silk garments and dark red turbans embroidered in gold, which gave the appearance of having been knotted in some haste, and they carried great platters laden with flowers, fruits, broken coconuts and a small pile of freshly butchered meat. Shakunta and her companion were there, too, the dragon now wearing an even more elaborate set of jewelry, with uncountable gold filigree chains around her neck and a dove egg sized ruby on her forehead, while her captain brought in a basin of smouldering coals. They set it all down on the floor of the cavern under the instructions of the priest. When all was arranged to the man’s satisfaction, they sat down cross-legged while the youngest and most elaborately dressed of the three soldiers stepped before Riley and the dragonet, a garland of flowers in one hand and a large gobbet of meat in the other. He held the meat out to the dragonet cajolingly and parroted, a little stumbling, a chant the priest was murmuring for him.

The dragonet ignored him and instead hopped closer to investigate the offerings. She nosed at a coconut, then started back from her reflection in the gleaming bronze platter.

The young man halted and looked at the priest, who jerked his head towards the dragonet. The young soldier looked a little frightened, but nodded and, quickly bending down, threw the garland over the dragonet’s head.

The small creature all but exploded in indignant fury. She wheeled around and tore the flower garland to shreds with her sharp claws. Then she picked up a piece of meat, thrust her head back to swallow it whole and seized another before hopping back to Riley to devour it.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Shakunta bellowed out in a reproachful voice and reached out his foreclaw to pull the dragonet away from Riley, dragging the little creature across the floor in an undignified tangle of oversized claws and crumpling wings. Two of the Maratha warriors sprung to their feet and pressed Riley to the wall. Will cried out in alarm, grasped the man nearest to him by the shoulders and tried to wrench him away from Riley. But the third soldier had now gotten up from where he had knelt baffled next to the wreckage of petals. Will was dragged backwards and froze when he felt the blade of the man’s sword pressed against his neck. One of the other two warriors still held Riley pinned to the wall while the other raised his sword. But the dragonet had found her feet again. She flung herself at the attacker from behind and hissed angrily, baring toothless gums – toothless except for two long, sharp and almost translucent fangs protruding from her palate, which she planted in the man’s neck just as the blade came wheeling down.

The warrior’s stifled cry rang in the air and died suddenly. His blow struck the stone wall with an ugly rasping noise. Blood spurted briefly from two small punctures in his neck, but in front of their horrified eyes, the surrounding skin swelled, grew a pallid greenish hue, and he fell backwards to strike the bronze platter, limp and dead. Will heard the man restraining him draw a long and shuddering breath, and suddenly the pressure of the blade against his neck was gone. Shakunta roared again, but this time, her voice quivered strangely. She gathered her companion close to herself and backed away into the darkness of the corridor. The priest and other soldiers followed at her heels. The shattered offerings remained on the floor.

The dragonet whimpered at Riley’s feet and scraped his boots with her claws. He took her up mechanically and she burrowed back under his shirt. He stood frozen, arms half-raised to the poisonous creature huddling against his chest. Finally he bent down and picked up one of the strewn pieces of meat. His fingers shook a little when her snout appeared, nostrils twitching. But she took it from his hand very neatly, sucked on it a little while with her toothless gums before swallowing, and then brought out her flickering tongue to lick his face with an air of gratitude.

Hunger and thirst won the better of Will now. He cautiously reached out a hand to take a banana that had survived the commotion. But that moment, there was a strange rasping and groaning noise and dust started raining down on their heads. They looked up. In front of their confused eyes, a hole in the ceiling was unstopped like a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The capping stone of the domed rock ceiling above them, carved into the delicate shape of a lotus flower and perhaps three feet across, was lifted up and away by two dragons pulling on iron rings sunk in the rock.

Then the face of the priest appeared briefly in the opened hatch. He raised his arm and flung a torch down at the pyre.

Perhaps the firewood had been doused in something flammable, or else the sheets covering the logs were of a peculiar material, because it went up in a blaze almost instantly.

The little dragon wriggled out of Riley’s arms to inspect the new phenomenon. She tried to hiss at the fire and retreated to Riley with a yelp of pain when her opponent bit back with heat and flame. More kindling was flung down on their heads, aimed into the corners of the room. The Marathas were plainly not just intending to feed the pyre, but to see the whole room engulfed in the blaze. The silk cushions of the egg niches, stuffed with raw cotton, and the delicate lengths of coloured silk that had been used to swaddle the eggs were catching like tinder. Will and Riley retreated to the wrought-iron door where the heat was still bearable, none of the throws of kindling and wood from the ceiling reaching this far. But the biting smoke was collecting here, too.

“Why don’t they just shoot us, if they want to kill us?” Riley coughed, cradling the dragonet.

“Burning might be a form of punishment for putting a hand on their dragons, like that man said, some Goddess burning him up," Will conjectured, his eyes streaming. The floor grew warmer under his bare feet. He could feel his heart beating fast and his hands shaking, from which he concluded he must be afraid. But at the same time, everything seemed strangely distant and unreal - the blaze engulfing the pyre with the small curled bodies of the dead dragonets, the offerings, the strewn petals of the torn garland and even the body of the fallen Maratha warrior, his embroidered tunic glinting in the firelight. Will suddenly thought he understood what the carvings on the walls portrayed: a fierce many-armed and many-faced god, rising from an egg. He stared in fascination, the whole tangle of bodies on the walls now resolving into frenzied stories of creation.

Then he called himself to sharp order. The fumes were muddling his head.

He tried to rattle the iron bars, but of course, the door would not open. He investigated the lock, a simple enough contraption by the look of it, a sliding bar. He tried to push his hand through the grille to pull it open, but the gaps were too small. A part of the pyre collapsed, sending a wake of glowing embers and ashes surging in their direction, sparks and smoking shreds of colourful fabric flying through the air as the draft out into the main temple chamber drew the flames in their direction. The air grew unbearably hot, the smell of roasted flesh sickening.

Will turned around. “Tom. She must fly” he rasped. There seemed barely enough air to breathe, let alone to speak. “Now.”

Riley hesitated briefly. Then he took the dragonet from the crook of his arm where she had huddled, small and frightened, stroked her head and whispered in her long hear:  “You must fly, my girl.” She looked up and chirped confused. He made a step towards the flames, holding her out. She tried to scramble back along his arm. But he flung her into the air. “Fly, if ever you may!”

She flapped her wings confused for a moment and fell back like a stone, towards the flames, and Riley let out a stifled anguished cry. But then she caught the right angle and managed to steady her plummet. She screeched surprised and triumphant, and tried to wing back to them, but the growing flames were barring her way. She hissed as they licked at her hide and beat her wings more vigorously. The firelight reflected in her scales as she soared upwards, giving her the air of an odd diminutively-sized phoenix. Then she was free, her screeching cry ringing small and oddly muffled outside, without the chamber’s echo to amplify it.

Will thought he heard it answered by another dragon’s voice, Temeraire’s thundering roar. It was most likely another trick of the fumes, but the thought filled him with a strange calm, a languid ease spreading through his limbs like tar. His head was swimming. He could not stay on his feet any longer. In the biting smoke, he was vaguely aware of Riley slumping down beside him, a hand’s breath away from the searing hot metal grate.

Then suddenly, dust and clumps of stone came raining down into the licking flames. A black claw was thrust through the opening, and then Temeraire was roaring at the cave roof. Cracks spread, and a huge stone slab thundered down into the flames. Temeraire thrust his head through the newly widened hole in the ceiling, heedless of the flames and smoke. “Will! Will, are you there? Oh Will, do answer!”

“Temeraire,” Will croaked.

Another slab fell from the ceiling as the cracked roof caved in under Temeraire’s weight. Temeraire reached down and raked some of the burning mess out of the way. Someone was shouting outside. Temeraire handed down to two figures barely discernible in the rushing smoke, faces shielded behind wetted handkerchiefs.

Will was only faintly aware of a shoulder being shoved under his, and of being lifted off the floor. He clutched limply at the man who had come down for him and now dragged him across the ash-strewn floor and up one of the fallen ceiling slabs. A face with black almond-shaped eyes, utterly foreign and yet faintly familiar. Then Temeraire's foreclaw snatched them up. “Will! Are you hurt?”

Will coughed.

“Put him down, you silly beast, and let me have a look!” Mr Laithwaite shouted, and Will felt the probing hands of the surgeon on him. “Have you taken any burns?”

Will could not reply, and only drew deep, rasping breaths. It was raining again, every drop a caressing touch on his soot-streaked face. The surgeon unceremoniously turned him here and there, murmuring to himself, and even pried open his mouth to look inside. Then, apparently satisfied, he got up and walked away. Isabella came to hand him a cup of water. He took it gratefully and sat up. They were presently situated at the edge of the smoking hole where the cavern lay, in the middle of a stone platform guarded by two large carved elephants, one of whom had had its tusks and trunk broken off. Will realised it was the same place where the grey dragon had first attacked them, the one he had mistaken for a rock. But his tongue was thick in his mouth, his thoughts still flowed slowly like treacle, and he could not form a full sentence to ask how in the world he had come to be back here.

“Riley…?” he coughed instead.

“Ingram got him out after you,” Isabella said, and looked not entirely happy to admit Ingram had done something of use.

Temeraire still nosed at him anxiously, and Will stroked his muzzle. “Temeraire” he asked, “How ever… did you find us?”

“Oh,” Temeraire said, “We found your coat, and Mr Bahadur showed us the way to the temple, which was very close to where we had been attacked, only we could not see it from above because it was a cave, not a building. We saw all the smoke going up, and then she came, and all the Indian dragons ran away.”

“She?” Will rasped, uncomprehending.

“That little blue dragon there.”

Will looked around, and indeed: the Indian dragonet had returned to take up jealous guard over Riley. He lay on the floor barely conscious while the small creature prodded at his face and neck as if to rouse him, making low unhappy noises. She would not let Mr Laithwaite get close enough to examine him or so much as feel his pulse, hissing angrily every time he tried to approach.

“Temeraire,” Mr Laithwaite snorted. “Can you do anything about that little devil?”

“Be careful!” Will cried, “Her bite is poisonous!“

Temeraire lowered his head and spoke sternly to the dragonet, in Durzagh, Chinese, even French, to little effect. Finally, the lean dark-eyed man who had earlier extracted Will walked to his side and said something to Temeraire. Temeraire nodded. The man knelt down before the dragonet and spoke quietly. She paused her hissing and flapping. Then she chirped a reply.

“Oh,” Temeraire said, indignantly, “She can speak! I thought all she would do was hiss. Thank you, Mr Bahadur. Pray can you tell her nobody is trying to harm Riley, so she needn’t put up such a fuss!”

After this had been explained to her, the dragonet let Mr Laithwaite examine Riley. Riley opened his eyes with a small groan of pain when the dragon-surgeon pulled him forward ungently to get a look at his back. The dragonet yelped and immediately thrust herself at him again, talking at great speed in her chirping voice. Mr Laithwaite cursed.

Riley stroked her head. “What... is she saying?”

They both turned to look at the native man who had translated before, the one Temeraire had called Mr Bahadur. Will was once again struck by his curious likeness to his godfather, Tharkay, and dimly wondered whether Mr Bahadur might be a Himalayan hillman, perhaps even of a related tribe.

“She is speaking the Marathi tongue which she was taught in the shell,” Mr Bahadur said, “She says she is very hungry. And, Sir, she is asking what name you would give her.”

Riley only stared. Will stared, too. The dragonet sat up proudly in front of Riley now, so he could see her full conformation and colouring. There could be no mistake, despite her diminutive size and the translucency of her scales. He looked at the sky-blue hide, marked with faint darker stripes, the long snake-like neck, the large talons and the long, tightly furled wings: a Persian illumination sprung to alarming life.

“Tom,” he said hoarsely, “I think… I am almost certain she is a Bengal Nakhara, like the Mughal emperors had.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recapping: At Bombay, Temeraire is keen to support Lily’s new formation in a skirmish with the powerful Maratha Empire, but Will, fed up with pretending to be a captain, insists they must stay out of it. Tom Riley asks Will for help to recover his fiancé from the danger zone. At a Navy club, they learn that the East India Company plans to raid a temple serving as a hatchery for dragon eggs. Their attempt to prevent the robbery fails when Temeraire and his crew are taken for the Company’s aerial support and Will and Tom are taken prisoner. Nearly all eggs held at the temple have been destroyed, but one damaged egg hatches a premature blue dragonet. Tom picks it up, with the result that the dragon refuses to leave him again. Vengeful, the Marathas decide to burn Will, Tom and, perforce, the dragonet alongside the killed eggs. With the help of Min Bahadur, a Gurkha deserter from the Company’s troops, Temeraire manages to find the temple and rescue them.

_The Bengal Nakhara, or Serpent of Panipat, is a species of dragon so rarely seen in human company as to be the stuff of legend, and indeed scholars have often dismissed the entire breed as a literary Device of the Persian chroniclers, intricately linked as it is to the exploits of the great Mughal Dynasty of India. But travellers Bernier and Child have produced matching accounts of the Emperor’s dragon in the palace at Agra, and most Western readers will be familiar with the moving Account of Emperor Jahan’s grief upon the death of the beast, which caused him to raise up the famous mausoleum known as the Taj Mahal. Allegedly the Natives of India saw the Mughals’ dragon as a Reincarnation of Goddess Durga herself, which aided the bloodless Conquest of large stretches of land by the Emperors._

_Despite this mythical reputation, the Nakhara do not represent a rare breed. Feral individuals can be sighted to this day in the mangrove forests of Bengal where they prey on water buffalo and deer. No trustworthy sources can substantiate the claim that they also hunt Bengal tigers and elephants, although they would be well capable of taking on even this imposing sort of prey. Their wingspan and height put them squarely in the Middleweight category; however, they are equipped with sharp talons and a most potent venom capable of stunning and killing creatures larger than their own form, the pharmacological Properties of which remain to be elucidated. They are of very slender conformation and deep blue colouring, with darker stripes running along their back, and their tail is carried off the ground in the manner of most Asiatic breeds. Mature specimens develop a distinctive spectacle pattern on their neck which can be displayed as a threat. A similar behaviour can also be observed in other, non-venomous Indian beasts, perhaps an example of Mimicry akin to the similarities one might observe between a wasp and harmless hoverfly._

_The main puzzle of the breed lies in its fierce resistance to human harnessing attempts, a trait which has of course also been described in some European breeds (viz. the Grey Widowmaker of Scotland, or Alpine tatzelwyrm). It is therefore with great pleasure that I report an eyewitness account of the taming of one of these elusive creatures. Hatched at an immature age and therefore perhaps less averse to human Company, the calamitous circumstances of this individual’s birth furnish an insight into a breed of dragon little known to science._

Will put down his pen, shook the cramp from his hand and took off his reading glasses. Through some miracle of his coat’s pockets they had not been lost, but one of the lenses was badly cracked. His head ached. Mr Laithwaite and Temeraire, in perfect unison for once, had ordered him to sleep. But after staring at the ceiling for what had seemed like an eternity, he had gotten up and started a letter to the Royal Society instead. He had written the first few paragraphs with feverish haste, but now could not think of how to continue. Whenever he tried to recall the events at the temple with any sort of precision, his mind suddenly clouded over like a tarnished mirror.

The Kingstons had been very kind, considering the circumstances of a heavyweight dragon and bloodied ragtag band descending on their estate. They would barely have been in a position to offer aid, had it been required. But fortunately, no fighting, burning or pillaging had yet touched the red-tiled houses peacefully nestled between rows of tea bushes, tidy as if someone had applied a comb to the hills. The starched embroidered bedlinen and vase of flowers on the windowsill seemed almost unreal, as did the tidy letter. Will took it up again and then crumpled it savagely. At this moment, he could almost understand his father’s bewilderment at academic pursuits, a vain exercise indeed compared with the blood and fury of actual fighting. It seemed frankly laughable to describe a dragon’s dentition or compare the claws of different breeds, when the very same teeth and claws were bent on ripping out one’s throat. He pushed himself up to pace the room in frustration, his thigh complaining with every step where the grey dragon’s talon had pierced the skin clean.

Voices in the garden outside distracted him and he limped to the window. Riley was walking along the garden path with Aouda at his heels. The Indian dragonet had let him put a collar around her neck to reassure their hosts. “Oh Will, what have I done!” Riley had exclaimed, on their retreat from the valley, “ _Aouda_ of all names in the world! An Oriental princess in the stories my nurse used to tell me… she must have gotten it from one of her French novels, an indecent one more likely than not. They’ll die of laughter, back in Bombay.”

“Well, she likes it, that is the most important thing,” Will had said. The dragonet’s pleasure in her new name had been plain. She had evaded Riley’s grasp and scrambled along Temeraire’s harness all the way to his head to announce it straight into his ear. Fortunately, Temeraire had been restrained enough not to shake her off – Will was not sure whether Aouda’s flying capabilities would have allowed her to break a plummet from several hundred feet in the air.

“Yes,” Temeraire had grumbled, “That is a very nice name Captain Riley has given you. But don’t you get ideas, you are not having any of _my_ crew.”

In the garden, Aouda was busily investigating her surroundings. She had not uttered a single word on the day of her hatching, but having now discovered the use of words, she bid fair to compensate, chattering almost incessantly. Riley had initially enlisted the help of one of the Kingstons’ native servants to translate her many questions, but currently, the hatchling showed great enthusiasm to acquire English. She nosed at the pebbles of the path, pronouncing them “stones!”.

Riley bent down, flinching a little from his burns, to pet her head and praise her.

“What stones?” she asked. “Precious stones?”

“Oh, you mean what type of stones?” Riley said, scratching his head, “I’m afraid I do not know, my dear, but we can ask Mr Laurence later today, I am sure he knows.”

“They are gneiss,” Temeraire said knowledgeably, raising his head from where he had dozed among the tea bushes, “And they are not precious, even if they are very pretty.”

“Tom!” a clear high voice rang out from below Will’s window, and the next moment, the daughter of the house came walking out, hitching up her skirts to stop them dragging on the monsoon-drenched ground. “Why ever are you not resting? You are not meant to go walking, do you not remember what the surgeon said?”

Rebecca Kingston was about Will’s age, a pretty and vivacious young lady. She did not flinch from either Temeraire or Aouda, and if she was surprised to find her fiancé surrounded by dragons, she did not show it. Perhaps, Will thought, Aouda’s presence would not put an end to all Riley’s avowed aspirations to hearth and home after all.

“Becky,” Riley said, a little confused, “I did not see you there. … Will you meet Aouda? Aouda, this is Becky Kingston, my fiancé.”

Aouda looked up. Then she screeched something in Marathi, snaked herself around Riley, peered over his shoulder and hissed at her rival. The servant, whether from tact or fear, did not translate her remark. Miss Kingston stared at the dragon.

“So this is… _your_ beast?”

“Ah, you see,” Riley began, stroking Aouda’s head reassuringly, “We found her in the temple at Nalkonda. She is the only one who survived the Company’s assault.”

“But why did you not leave it behind, for the Marathas?” she asked, eyes widening.

“We… tried. She would not… have the rider they had assigned for her, so-“

She glared at him alarmed. “So _you_ put yourself forward? Tom – for Heaven’s sake stop _petting_ it and letting it sit on you – no wonder it thinks it can impose on you! Put it down at once.”

Riley took a step back. “Becky, you cannot speak so to Aouda. You should have seen what they did to the other eggs, and her witnessing it all through the shell – it is a miracle she is as sweet-tempered as she is.”

“Sweet-tempered? Have you _seen_ the creature?” Miss Kingston gasped, pointing at the long claws dug into his shoulders, inches from his neck. Aouda was now voraciously hungry and had greedily devoured the porridge and small scraps of mutton offered to her. Having put on a foot in length since her hatching, she could now no longer easily huddle under Riley's shirt and had instead settled for curling around his neck and shoulders like a peculiar azure scarf. To the innocent onlooker, she appeared to be strangling him. “Those savages will have taught it to hate Englishmen, and it will suffocate or poison you in your sleep! I beg you, tell it to go away!”

Riley frowned at her. “What nonsense, Becky. I shall do no such thing.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You intend to keep it?”

He pressed his lips together. “Her.”

“You promised me you would _not_ take a dragon!” she exclaimed, her voice suddenly choked with tears. Will at the window was unpleasantly conscious that the scene before him was not meant for his eyes, and not for Temeraire’s or Aouda’s either. But he could not tear himself away. “Tom, I do not deserve this! You promised you would take me back to England, away from this godforsaken country-“

Riley held out his handkerchief, a little helplessly. “Becky, my love – do calm yourself. We can talk about it and find a way. I can still take you to England. We can still-“

“Talk about it?” she sobbed, “Whatever can there be to _talk about?_ Oh, that you even dare suggest it to my face – what, become the wife of an aviator, and be ridiculed wherever I go? _Look at her, who could get no better?_ You might just as well leave me on this plantation, then! I have waited for you all those years, when by God I had other chances, and now _this_?”

“Becky, let me explain…” He tried to wipe a tear from her face. But she jerked back sharply.

“Don’t _touch_ me!” She drew herself up, raised a hand, and struck him across the face.

Aouda hissed angrily, but Riley quickly gripped her collar. Miss Kingston turned around and strode back to the house.

“Will you at least come back to Bombay with us?” Riley called after her, almost pleadingly, holding his cheek, “The border province is not safe!”

But no reply came. Will heard a door slam shut.

 

\--

 

“This is a military coup! It will not stand!” Lieutenant-General Keane of the East India Company’s army growled. His staff of military officers murmured approvingly.

“I do not care,” Admiral Harcourt said, fists planted on the table. “You will run us into an outright war! _Kill_ dragon eggs? What were you thinking? You are willingly hazarding a repetition of the Madras Fire and worse!”

She scowled at the assembled officers, red-faced and sweating in their thick uniforms and high choking collars, almost absurdly formal. The lieutenant-general had clearly meant to make a show of force. But Admiral Harcourt, too, could play that game. She had come in full uniform with a perfectly tied neckcloth, polished boots and gleaming medals, her hair tightly braided and knotted up at the back of her head. Beside Little Will and Captain Riley, whom she had placed in the middle of the room in the position of chief witnesses, she had brought only her first lieutenant and Captain Turner. The other aviators were still busy calming the dragons and overseeing the treatment of the wounded. But what they lacked in numbers, Harcourt made up by sheer force of indignation, with not a trace of the easy informality Will had observed in her before.

“And even more to the point,” she went on, “I would be curious to know who of you gentlemen came up with the fine idea of moving my formation out of the way on a pretext, to better carry out your shameful act? Would they like to explain themselves to me, or to Fiducia perhaps, whose Captain was killed yesterday?”

They avoided her eyes. Nobody replied.

She snorted and turned to James Farish, the civilian acting-governor of Bombay, a sallow and nervous man who had only recently been promoted to his role after his long-serving predecessor’s death.

“Sir,” she told him, “if you cannot bring your rabid dogs to heel, I can no longer vouch for your safety, nor that of any British subject in the Bombay presidency. So, to repeat myself: You will take your flag down from the garrison, place your troops and administration under my command, and leave the negotiations with the Marathas to me and my officers. I needn’t tell you they will be on us any hour now. Alternatively, we will withdraw, and I wish you luck trying to hold the city against the Maratha’s aerial forces. You have a wife in the city, do you, Sir? Children?”

“But you cannot leave us to the mercy of …” Farish began, stuttering and pale, but she interrupted him coldly.

“If my terms are disagreeable, I can assure you the alternative will be even more so, especially once the reason for the Maratha’s wrath becomes known to your Indian troops, and you will have a fine mutiny on your hands. But I do not intend to cling to power. I merely propose to put myself forward as a negotiator. My report will go out by courier to-day if you are agreed, and I will ask the Crown to assume direct control over the presidencies, with the full Dragon Rights Bill extended to the beasts of India.”

“But how do you intend to stop these heathens from laying waste to the city regardless? They are not to be reasoned with, as you own son’s example shows,” the lieutenant-general broke in again, pointing at Riley, “They tried to burn him up like Guy Fawkes’ day! And you suggest they will be swayed by a bill of rights?”

“I am merely suggesting that our chances of escaping utter destruction are likely to be marginally improved if they do not have the East India Company to negotiate with, after catching your soldiers red-handed,” she said, sharply, “Oh, and there is one thing I have forgotten. If you want my help, you will see Captain Laurence here to Canton, on one of your transports, _safely,_ so he can extract the dragon you have wrongly acquired there and put an end to this ill-informed rampage.”

Will startled, having been temporarily distracted by a spasm of pain in his thigh that had required him to focus all his energies on standing still. But when he caught Harcourt’s eye, to see whether she had noticed her mistake in address, she quickly shook her head to tell him he should keep quiet. The Company men stepped aside to confer in low whispers.

“Agreed, Admiral,” the lieutenant-governor finally said, turning back around. He threw down his sword on the table in front of Harcourt. “We will do as you command, on the condition that Captain…” He gestured towards Little Will, and when nobody prompted him, continued: “That this young Captain of yours and his beast leave tomorrow… surely we do not have a moment to lose, to stop this calamitous affair from spreading further! The _Java_ is anchored at Madras and should be big enough to take his dragon, and of course we will do everything in our power to see him safely across the sea.” He bowed.

Harcourt blinked, a little suspicious at this sudden complaisance, but then she picked up the sword, hooked it onto her belt, and nodded. “By all means. Dismissed, gentlemen! Go to your houses. You will be placed under arrest there – for your own safety.”

The lieutenant-general and his aides looked irritated for one moment at being ordered from their own garrison, until the full realization of the bargain they had just struck dawned on them, and they could do nothing but bow again and leave.

“Should we build defenses? Pepper-guns, perhaps?” Captain Turner asked after their footsteps had died away.

She snorted. “No, Silas, you’ve seen them yesterday. All the pepper in the Company’s stores shan’t do an ounce of good against their numbers and the wrath of their beasts. No, I intend to negotiate with them. If they refuse, I would rather hand over the Presidency without further bloodshed, and answer for it back in England, than repeating the slaughter of Madras.”

Will threw a worried glance to Riley. Such a decision would earn her no sympathies in England. A considerable number of parliament members were in some way connected or indebted to the East India Company, or even retired Company officials themselves who had used their considerable fortunes to purchase a seat. They would most likely clamour for Admiral Harcourt to be imprisoned, or worse, should she hand over the Company’s possessions without a fight.

But Harcourt had already turned to scratching out orders. “We need to get a message to the Madras covert and the one at Pondicherry. I doubt they will come at all of us at once, but we had better warn them. In any case they ought to prepare for an attack, and secure the company officials there, for their own safety. Can you copy this?”

“I will see to it!” Turner promised, accepted her note, and hurried away.

“How many dragons do they have?” Riley asked.

She let herself drop into a chair. “Twenty we had to contend with yesterday, and they will easily be able to draw together another thirty or forty from the borderlands and Pune… and in the whole of their country, who knows? Several hundreds, most likely, but I would be guessing. The Company will only let us have scraps of intelligence, although God knows they pay more spies than scribes… Oh, damnation.” She had taken off her coat. The sleeve on her left forearm was soaked with blood oozing from a bandage below her elbow. “No, no fussing! I had it bound up already…”

She warded off the combined offers of kerchiefs from Will and her lieutenant, Breck, and glared at her son when he suggested summoning one of the surgeons from the covert.

“Nonsense, there are others who have sorer need than me. Mr Breck? Pray go and round up a few of the sepoy regiments, and make sure they keep those Company villains detained in their houses.”

She pulled off her neckcloth to wrap it around her lower arm and pulled the knot tight with her teeth. “Now. Mr Laurence? I am sorry to spring it on you so, but I have named you a Captain in the dispatches, to claim you for our side in this wretched mess. I hope it will cast a fairly damning light on the Company to have caused one Captain of the Corps to be killed and another one almost burnt to death through their incompetence… Don’t look so worried. The letters will not reach England before a month at the earliest for any official confirmation, and seeing how the rest of your family tend to go about these things, you will do something to lose you the title again by the time you reach England. I hope you don’t mind me agreeing to that last demand of theirs, about sending you on your way tomorrow? I did not expect them to be so obliging, but I suspect they want Temeraire out of their faces, as well they might…”

Will bowed, still taken aback. But there was no other adequate reply he might give.

 

\--

 

By the afternoon, wings could be seen gathering in the distance. In the streets of Bombay, people shuttered up their houses and shops. A few tall ships were hastily loaded with boxes and bales from the storehouses by the waterfront, and could soon be seen beating out to sea.

“Look at the rats scrambling away,” Immortalis said disdainfully. From the covert’s small cemetery of whitewashed tombstones, the dragons had a good view of the harbour. “When they would deserve more than anyone else to answer for their crimes… _Killing eggs!_ And poor Fiducia, losing a captain for nothing, and him with no family at all. Although the Marathas are taking their time about this, I must say…”

“They probably await the arrival of their Peshwa,” little Audax, who had spent almost ten years in the presidency, suggested, “Their chief minister. It’s about two hours on the wing to their capital of Pune, so he should not be long now.”

A bell sounded, cutting off their whispers and involuntary drawing them up to attention. Temeraire watched the assembled captains take off their hats. Despite the sad circumstances, Temeraire could not suppress a certain pride at seeing Will amongst them. On their arrival, the other captains had even clapped him on the shoulders and grimly congratulated him. Will had looked intimidated rather than pleased, but that did not diminish Temeraire’s satisfaction: he was a captain now, nobody could quarrel with Admiral Harcourt’s orders, and surely Laurence would feel proud of them both once he heard of it. Temeraire had asked Isabella to add the happy news to their latest letter, after Will had flatly refused to lose a single word on it.

Admiral Harcourt read out a list of men killed in the fighting at Khandala and then turned to the shrouded body on the bier before them, covered with his green coat and sword. Captain Petham had been taken in the chest by a Maratha bullet, but through some feat had managed to stay alive for long enough to stop nervous Fiducia from balking and breaking the formation’s discipline – the only thing that had preserved them from being wholly routed by the Maratha forces, and allowed for an orderly retreat. He had died on the way back: the only body they had left to bury, from more than thirty killed.

Fiducia herself had been drugged by the surgeons to allow them to extract the musket balls from her chest and face, but there was an ugly scene when she roused and broke in on the funeral howling in despair, her grief cutting clean through the opium haze. The small Reaper snatched up her captain’s body and refused to give it up again. She growled and snapped at anyone who dared approach, as if the loss of her companion had left her with nothing but wild animal instincts. She snarled at Admiral Harcourt who tried to order her, kindly, to go and lie down again, and nearly slashed her talon at one of the surgeons who asked her to consider they could not leave the corpse unburied in the tropical heat or else it would putrefy and spread infection to everyone else. A chill travelled down Temeraire’s spine. To think of hearing one’s captain talked about thus…

He trotted up to Fiducia, his head bent low. “I think I understand how you are feeling,” he said, softly, “They once told me my captain was dead. I felt like nothing in the world would ever mean anything again. But that is not true. Your captain died fighting bravely, so you can be proud of him, and that means a lot. You should honour his bravery by being brave, too. There is a great deal a dragon can do.”

 “That is right,” Lily put in behind them. “Temeraire fought the French without a captain, when they told him his Laurence was dead, and helped us all a great deal during the invasion.”

 “I will have revenge!” Fiducia rasped.

“But you cannot blame the Indian dragons for fighting you,” Temeraire said, “When the Company attacked their fort to better take their eggs. No, Fiducia. Captain Petham would not like to hear you talk so. And you cannot want him to be remembered like _that._ ” He pointed a talon at the stiffened body clasped in Fiducia’s claws, the shroud frayed and torn so a ghastly paper-white hand could be seen. “You should put him down now so they can bury him, and when we have made peace with the Indian dragons, you should raise up the most beautiful tombstone for him, so that he can be remembered for his good virtues. That way, a man might live on – which is what Laurence must have meant when he said there is a life after death,” he concluded, “You might even have a poem inscribed for him, if you want.”

Fiducia slumped down. She looked up, her eyes still cloudy with grief, but the wild fire had died down. “A poem? Written by me?”

“Oh, of course!” Temeraire said, “It is what the dragons of China do, and I can help you with it. And he may have a marble stone, if you like. I will find one for you.”

Fiducia considered this. Then, slowly and carefully, she gathered her captain’s body up and carried it to the waiting grave. She lowered it gently, nudged at it a few times until everything was arranged to her satisfaction, and reached up to one of the bougainvillea hedges to tear off a large branch full of purple blooms to place in the grave. Then she swept in the first large talonful of soil.

Admiral Harcourt nodded to the chaplain, who, after a confused pause, quickly intoned a prayer, “forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed…”

The captains lined up to pay their respects and toss in their handful of soil, and after they had done, Temeraire followed, and after him the other dragons. The priest looked confused again, but one look from Harcourt stifled his protest, and he simply swallowed and finished, a little taut “…Amen.”

There was a small silence. Then a distant roaring could be heard, followed by a flare from the lookout in the lower city. The Marathas were coming, finally.

Harcourt nodded to the cemetery gate and they followed her, in perfect silence until Fiducia by the fresh grave was well out of earshot. The admiral pulled on her flying-gloves.

“Gentlemen, to reiterate. Lily, Temeraire and Aouda will go to meet them. The rest of you will stay here and take up posts through the city. Aim to keep the people calm and tell them to stay indoors. Captain Forthing will take charge of the Company’s regiments. Feel free to have any Company officer not submitting to your orders arrested for mutiny. Our first priority will be to prevent any unnecessary bloodshed. Any Questions?”

“Yes,” someone said behind them, and they turned to see Fiducia trotting towards them, looking to Temeraire. “What will you have me do?”

The aviators stared. Even Harcourt seemed dumbstruck.

“Well,” she finally said, and cast a dubious glance to the lieutenants, “If you will take an acting-captain… Breck? Ingram?”

“No, I will not,” Fiducia declared, her hoarse voice firm, and then she repeated: “But what will you have me do?”

“Catherine, she could help watch the Company men, could she not?” Lily suggested.

Harcourt nodded. “Yes… yes, of course. Fiducia, I order you to watch the Lieutenant-governor’s house.”

Fiducia looked at Temeraire, and Temeraire nodded. “Find yourself a regiment to help you. As the admiral said, you can give them orders now.”

“Oh, I will,” Fiducia said, quietly but firmly.

Temeraire felt a touch on his foreleg. “Temeraire, I am sorry, but we must go.” Will said, “Will you let them put this on you?”

He pointed at the large rolled-up white flag that the harnessmaster, Riggs, and his assistant Thorne were carrying. Another one was already being fastened to Lily’s harness.

“Oh, of course,” Temeraire said.

“Proper parley flags after all,” Riley muttered under his breath, when he brought Aouda across to the heavyweights.

“I never gave you that lace,” Will said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Riley said, “I find myself without a use.”

“I am sorry, Tom,” Will said quietly.

Riley smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

He had temporarily let go of Aouda’s collar, and the dragonet was now flapping her small wings and baring her fangs at Lily in a display of bravado until the Longwing growled a warning, put her head down and sprayed a steaming line of acid in the sand.

“Please don’t, my dear,” Harcourt said, “I want you on your best behavior now. All of you.”

Her glance lingered on Aouda, who closed her mouth and looked up at the admiral’s gleaming coat and medals. Then she scrambled back to Riley, huddling against his legs to be taken up. “If I behave, will you get a medal like that?” she chirped. “And a marble stone with… poem? What is a poem?”

Riley stared at her open-mouthed. “Oh, Aouda… I am not sure… hopefully not the latter!”

“ _You_ shall have a medal,” Harcourt said, taking a gold decoration of the Peninsula off her lapel and holding it out to the Indian dragonet. “This one right here, if you like, and a much prettier one newly made for you as well. Aouda, take a look at this city. I depend on you to stop it being burned down.”

“I do not like fire at all,” Aouda said, shuddering with deep aversion, and nosed at the medal, “So, shall we not go?”

 

\--

 

The ceremony in the sweltering heat seemed to drag on endlessly. A priest with a dabble of red and white paint on his forehead murmured Sanskrit incantations over a fire and threw in offerings. Riley’s and Aouda’s heads had been similarly painted, with a different pattern of uncertain meaning to Will, and garlands of bright orange flowers hung around their necks. From time to time, the priest instructed them to perform some part in the ritual. Aouda accomplished the tasks with ease, having perhaps been prepared in the shell, although she was very careful not to let the flames get too close to her gleaming blue hide. Riley was no less eager, but required a good deal of confused groping and pointing at things on the floor with questioning looks at the priest until he chanced on the right item to cast in the fire.

Will’s legs had long gone numb, unaccustomed to crouching on the bare ground for so long, though as a not entirely unwelcome consequence, his thigh had stopped complaining. A few days ago, he would have given a great deal for the chance to observe an Indian harnessing ceremony, likely going back to ancient times. Now, the spectacle was hard to bear, bringing back haunting memories of the abortive one they had witnessed in the temple at Nalkonda, and sealing his dear friend’s fate. The city had been saved, for the moment. Harcourt had succeeded at convincing the Maratha ministers of her shared disgust for the murder of the eggs. But she had been forced to vouch her own son against the good behavior of the British. Tom would be given to the Marathas, the same way the Mysorean princes had been taken hostage forty years ago.

If Tom’s fate grieved her, Harcourt’s face did not betray it. She sat next to the Maratha First Minister, Peshwa Rao, on a raised dais spread with cushions and drapery and observed the proceedings with perfect composure. Her coat fairly paled in comparison to the Peshwa, who seemed to be almost dripping jewels, with ruby pins and clasps on his turban, several long chains of pearls around his neck, and even a pair of heavy gold earrings. Yet facing him, Aouda had remained firm in her terms. The infant Bengal Nakhara had pronounced herself happy to join the Peshwa’s court and be paraded around all the Maratha realm, likely to the man’s great prestige, if she could keep Riley with her and if there would be no burning or destruction of his Captain’s mother’s cities, by which she meant Bombay and Madras.

Riley himself also looked calm, for the momenta apparently only relieved not to be parted from Aouda. The Marathas had been somewhat mollified after it had been represented to them that both Riley’s parents were, or had been, decorated serving-officers, and that he could therefore be considered alike to a _kshatriya,_ a member of their warrior caste, worthy of handling a dragon.

“The _Java_ ,” Riley said in the evening, when he and Will shared a parting glass of wine in the covert gardens, “One of their largest East Indiamen. Twenty-six guns. You could have asked for worse… although she is no transport. Temeraire will be cramped, and you better take him aloft as much as you can.”

“We shall manage,” Will said, staring at his glass. He would have infinitely preferred Riley and the _Resolution_ , but of course, he could hardly say so now. Tom and Aouda would leave for Agra the next morning, and thence embark on a tour of the principal Maratha cities which would be Aouda’s new home, and Riley’s gilded prison.

“Promise me you will be careful,” he said instead, “Until the government decides whether to back the Admiral’s proposal regarding the presidencies, there will be very little to stop them, should they decide to violate the terms of the truce, and do you some harm.”

“Now you sound just like mother,” Riley sighed. “But rest assured, I am sure Aouda will make short work of anyone who tried. And an angry Nakhara would not look good for the Peshwa, when he seems so keen to show her as his dear friend…”

He stroked the sleek head resting in his lap. Aouda was sleeping contentedly, snoring a little after the plentiful meal she had been served at the Maratha encampment. She had insisted on sharing it with Temeraire, Lily and, to the man’s misfortune, Riley, sending her captain coughing and groping for the water-jug at his first bite.

“Perhaps I will be home sooner than all of you like, if she finds someone more impressive than me. There seems to be no shortage of gold and jewels among their ranks. They have told her she is some rebirth of sort, of one of their goddesses, and therefore deserves not one name, but one hundred and eight! One of their priests was busy a damn long time reeling them off to her. She got bored halfway through and slunk off, which makes me happier than it ought to” he said soberly, and after a moment asked: “Your father’s dragon – did he ever want to stay in China?"

“I don’t think so,” Will said, “At least, neither Temeraire nor father ever mentioned anything of the sort.” But the thought left an unpleasant taste – other people certainly had. Lieutenant Ingram’s caution had seemed absurd back in Italy, but now, with their arrival in China becoming a very real prospect, Will could not help wondering whether there would not – _should_ not – be attempts to lure Temeraire away, given how relations between their nations stood. He pushed the thought away. If he started to doubt Temeraire’s loyalty, he might just as well start questioning the very ground on which he stood.

“I am glad to hear it,” Riley said, “When you get home, perhaps you and Temeraire could put a word in Admiral Laurence’s ear for us. He might be able to sway some of their Lordships in mother’s favour.”

Will nodded. “Temeraire has already written something to that effect in his letter – he sends letters to father every week. And if we reach England in time, of course I will try everything I can,” Will promised, and was a little surprised how sincerely he meant it. He would happily besiege his father, endure the inescapable comparison between a man like Riley and him, Little Will, and even hazard himself to a political dinner, if it were asked of him, for the slightest chance of a sensible peace in India. If the Company’s advocates won the upper hand, if Harcourt was condemned and the Presidency returned to the Company, he was under no illusion that Tom would bleed for it, no matter how much Aouda’s shine was worth to the Marathas. They had already risked burning her to death once, rather than seeing her bound to the English.

“I thank you,” Riley said, and reached into his pocket, “Before I forget – do you think this will do? I am sorry it is precious little. I made her bite the rim of a cup, but she was not best pleased, as you can probably imagine.” He brought out a small vial containing a pale milky fluid – Nakhara venom. Will had asked him whether Aouda might be able to provide a specimen.

Will accepted it carefully and wrapped it in a handkerchief. “That is plenty… Mr Laithwaite will be pleased.”

In fact, the surgeon had not been in the least interested, but Will thought he might give it to Professor Owen so a study could be made of it.

“Happy to oblige,” Tom said, “Can I ask you a favour in turn? Will you take a letter for my little sister? She is assigned to Excidium, so you might see her sometime. I can send it with the couriers, of course, but she will have it all from mother anyways, and it would be more convincing, coming from you, that I am content with my lot… Oh, and tell her to finally put that brother of yours out of her mind, he sounds like a good-for-nothing."

“I will give it to her,” Will said, blushing a little, and tucked the letter in a pocket of his coat – Horatio’s coat.

They bade each other good night, and Will went to the officer’s mess to return the glasses. He caught Ingram in the corridor outside that room. They held a hasty conference on the state of preparations for their departure the next morning and checked the maps Harcourt had provided for them. By the time everything had been discussed and they had agreed to meet again before sunrise to double-check the arrangements, it was almost midnight. Will crossed the entrance hall to make his way to the garden pavilion where Temeraire slept, yawning, when suddenly, someone behind him said, in a low voice: "Captain!"

He startled and turned to find Min Bahadur leaning in the door he had just left. He had not heard the fellow at all.

“Mr Bahadur - what brings you here?” Will asked, quickly stifling his yawn.

“Come this way,” Mr Bahadur whispered and pointed to the dark corridor that led away into the depths of the covert, the opposite direction to the one Will had intended.

“What?” Will blinked. “Why? Who sends you?”

He eyed the gurkha suspiciously. Mr Bahadur now wore a simple black and red regimental jacket, closed with a quilted sash into which his curved knife had been tucked, cotton trousers and a turban knotted in a manner quite unlike that of the Marathas. He was still barefoot, which probably accounted for his silent approach. Will knew nothing about the man, except that Temeraire had picked him up somewhere in Nalkonda valley, on precisely what errand only he himself knew. If his own account was to be trusted, he had deserted the Company’s raiding party. Will was not ungrateful: after all, Mr Bahadur had shown Temeraire the hidden cave temple. But he had refused to accompany them back to Bombay, likely on account of any penalty his desertion might carry, and Will had all but put him out of his mind – him and the curious likeness to Mr Tharkay, despite the marked difference in their age and attire. The thought had crossed his mind again once or twice that day, but he had finally decided it was most likely a trick of his inexperienced mind, which looked on any Himalayan hillman and immediately construed a resemblance with the only man of that race known to him. How Mr Bahadur should have contrived to return to Bombay, to be reinstated to his regiment, and where his loyalties lay, Will could only guess.

Mr Bahadur met his eyes without flinching. “Just come,” he hissed, “I will explain later.”

Will shook his head. “Tell me what you want, or come back tomorrow.”

Mr Bahadur startled and looked up sharply when someone moved in the gallery above their heads, his hand jerking to his knife.

“Captain, is this native giving you trouble?” One of Little’s lieutenants had come out of the upstairs rooms and eyed Mr Bahadur suspiciously.

“No, thank you, Mr Grey. He was just about to take his leave.” Will waved the lieutenant away. The man gave a suspicious glance, but finally walked away to another room. “I am indebted for your help,” Will said to Mr Bahadur when all had fallen silent again, “But I cannot go away with you on a whim. I need to check on Temeraire. We have a long journey tomorrow. If you will not tell me why you have come, I am sure it can wait.” He turned away and walked to the door.

Behind him, Mr Bahadur muttered a curse. Will, his hand on the door knob, turned around. “You needn’t call me a thick-headed Englishman,” he said indignantly, “I understand your language perfectly well.”

“They are planning to kill you,” Mr Bahadur snapped. He made a quick step towards Will and caught him by the shoulder, drawing him away from the door. “Now _come_!”

Will, startled by this behavior – completely unlike the stifled subservience displayed by many of the natives towards the British officers – quickly freed himself. He threw open the garden door. The green-uniformed guardsman posted there cast him a surprised glance, but did not shift his position of attention. “This is on the outside of enough. You will tell me the name of your commanding officer-“

He walked through the door onto the garden path, and stopped when he realized Mr Bahadur was no longer at his side.

He turned around. The gurkha stood frozen in the door, his eyes wide enough that the whites were shining in the dim light issuing from the entrance hall. Then several things seemed to happen all at once. The guard raised his weapon. Mr Bahadur threw himself at the man. Rifle-shot exploded, the bright flash intolerably loud in the night. Will threw himself down on the gravel path and pressed himself against the ground. Behind him was a stifled shout and muffled thud, the grating of metal on metal.

Turning his head, Will caught a glimpse of Mr Bahadur and the guard locked in a grappling combat. The gurkha had managed to wrestle the guardsman to the ground and lock an arm around his shoulders from behind. With his other hand, he pressed his knife to the man’s throat. But his opponent put up a fierce struggle, pushing the blade away from his neck with the barrel of his spent rifle without regard for the blood running freely over his fingers where the blade had scored them. His other hand strained for something glinting on the lawn inches away from his frantic fingers – a pistol, Will realized, cocked and ready.

He forced his frozen limbs to obey, scrambled to his feet and picked up the weapon, cold and heavy in his hand. He pointed it at the guardsman’s head.

“Surrender yourself,” he heard himself say.

“Never!” the man rasped, “Spying false naturalist and Gurkha scum of the earth – to hell with all of you!”

He heaved Bahadur’s knife away, clubbed him in the belly with the rifle’s butt and, when his opponent recoiled, lunged to grasp Will’s arm.

Will pulled the trigger.

The man thumped backward against the carved teakwood of the covert wall, his forehead shattered.

Will stared, the pistol still raised in his hand. His eyes were dazzled from the flash and only a small amount of light fell from the door still ajar. But the slashed talon-scars on the man's cheek and flung-back forearms were distinct: The first man he had killed was Major Gibson.

 

\--

 

“When I said, do something to lose the title again, I did not mean go away and start shooting down British officers,” Admiral Harcourt sighed, buttoning her coat over her nightgown.

She was speaking to Temeraire’s tail, curled protectively around Will. The small sleepy knot of aviators accompanying her had been ordered to search the grounds for any more intruders – likely a futile task when the noise of the commotion would have warned anyone within half a mile. In the initial confusion, they had even tried to arrest Mr Bahadur, until Will had shouted at them and pointed at the pistol in his own hand. It had not been the most opportune moment for the Admiral to join them. Fortunately at least the other dragons now kept quiet, after Lily had been sent to corral them.

“This man,” Temeraire growled, poking a savage talon at Gibson’s body, “tried to shoot Will, so he had every right to defend himself!”

Harcourt sighed and turned to Mr Bahadur. “And what have you to say to this?”

“The lieutenant-governor wishes Captain Laurence disposed of,” the young gurkha replied.

“How do you know? And why didn’t you just tell me?” Will shouted, the angry tone muffled by Temeraire’s tail, “Temeraire, stop this, let me out!”

Temeraire reluctantly uncurled himself a little.

“Unfortunately, the lieutant-general neglected to detail how exactly his end should be achieved,” Mr Bahadur said. “So I thought it prudent to keep it to myself until I had taken the Captain somewhere safe. The eyes of the Company are everywhere.”

Admiral Harcourt frowned, turning back to Will. “Now, there’s a fix. However are we to get you to Canton? … And to Canton you must go, the less they want you to, the more urgent the need. I see the _Java_ is out of the question… but I cannot spare you the _Resolution,_ either, if any day now we might have to evacuate a whole formation.”

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Mr Bahadur suggested, “We might travel overland.”

“Excuse me? _We?_ ” Will broke in, leaning over to massage his aching thigh. “Through Maratha land? No. I will not hazard Temeraire going there again.”

“Yes! We might accompany Aouda and Riley,” Temeraire suggested blithely, instantly catching on to the idea, “And see all those nice places they were telling her about today!”

Will, once again astonished how quickly Temeraire managed to acquire languages, shook his head. “We do not have time for that, Temeraire.”

“But you might travel north, nevertheless” Mr Bahadur said, “A reasonable number of dragons from the mountains and Central Asia ply the trade roads and have been doing so since the times of Ashoka the Great. You might take the Lucknow road into Awadh, and from there across the mountain passes into Tibet and China.”

“No, there is no need at all,” Will protested, “Major Gibson hated the Corps! I heard him say so himself. He was most likely acting alone.”

Mr Bahadur looked at him a little amused. Then he reached inside his jacket and produced a ragged-looking note with a broken seal, which he handed to Will. There was a small dirty handprint on the paper, as if from a child. It was a short order written to a Captain Haldern of the _Java_ , announcing their arrival and purpose, and it finished bluntly:

_…And if by small chance he and his beast should reach Madras and board your ship, I trust you will see to it that he does not set foot on Canton Harbour._

Will passed it on to Harcourt, gritting his teeth.

“That is Keane’s signature right there,” she said, “I call that conclusive. Mr Bahadur, I have no idea how you managed to acquire this, but I daresay you have done us a great service.” She carefully tucked it away in a pocket of her coat. “Captain Laurence, I understand your concerns, but I am afraid we are not left with much of a choice. So we will listen to their excuses and crocodile tears tomorrow, and you will leave for Madras, but I expect you to not arrive there.”

 

\--

 

The next morning, Will shook Lieutenant-General Keane’s hand. He felt numb and tired to the bone. They had been up all night to finish their frantic preparations, and now, he barely managed to stammer a civil reply when the man inquired after his health and expressed his contempt for the “craven and contemptible attempt on his life”, as he liked to call it. Fortunately Keane seemed unsuspecting, especially once Admiral Harcourt had walked across to clasp his hand and greet him warmly. Temeraire was less self-controlled and growled when the Company delegation entered the grounds, putting out a cautious claw to gather Will close to himself. Will glimpsed the portly shape of Colonel Burns amongst the uniformed group. The man looked genuinely grieved and Will almost raised a hand to greet him, but then he quickly reminded himself not trust anybody’s appearances and looked away. Admiral Harcourt called for glasses of chilled tonic and great juicy platters of fruit. She politely sipped at her glass while Keane expounded on Major Gibson’s eccentric views and fragile state of mind since being injured by a Maratha beast in the Fourth War of ’28. She even managed, with perfect cheer, to contribute an anecdote of her own, of an aviator similarly afflicted with madness after his beast had been killed in action. The general mood thus improved, they once again waited for the arrival of the Maratha delegation that was to take Aouda and Riley into their custody.

Will took himself away under a pretense of going to look for a trinket he might have lost at the dragons’ pavilion. He saw Riley looking after him and raising a worried brow, but he avoided his friend's gaze. He wanted to be to himself for a moment. The presence of the Company officials and their confessions of shock and commiseration were hard to bear in their insincerity, as was the babble about their regret at losing "the best of dragons", and even the company of the beasts seemed stifling. Aouda was resplendent in the jewellery the Marathas had presented her with, about to carry Tom away with her; Temeraire and Fiducia had been harnessed and loaded with baggage for their own desperate mission, and the Bombay Formation still looked battered and bruised as a reminder of the likely penalty of any mistake they might make.

Walking up to the carved pavilion, he was surprised to catch sight of Mr Bahadur under the old Banyan tree that stood a short distance away from it, apparently engaged in talking to the monkeys perched in its branches. Harcourt had asked him to stay out of sight of the Company delegation, for fear he might be recognized despite his new attire of aviator green. Will halted and watched, bemused, as Mr Bahadur whistled and clicked his fingers at the screeching band in the tree. He silently shook his head, with a sinking feeling – a madman to guide them through Maratha territory – and already wanted to walk on when suddenly, one of the macaques swung himself down and waddled towards Mr Bahadur, smacking its lips happily. The young man bent down a little and the next moment, the monkey had jumped onto his shoulder and settled himself there with practiced ease. Mr Bahadur ran a hand over the animal’s thick grey fur talking softly. He brought out a small packet of fruit wrapped in banana leaves, which Will recognized as identical to the ones the cooks had been cutting up for the reception of the Company officials.

Finding himself interested despite himself, Will walked closer. “Fascinating, Sir. Is your monkey tame?”

Mr Bahadur turned sharply. The macaque reared up and bared an impressive set of yellowed teeth.

“No,” Mr Bahadur said, with unexpected heat, “He is not tame, and he is not mine. Not everything can be reduced to someone else’s possession.”

At least partly contradicting his words, Will glimpsed a thin cord with an amulet hung around the monkey’s neck. Will felt almost certain he had discovered at least part of the secret of Mr Bahadur’s acquisition of the Lieutenant-Governor’s letter, and if he had offended the man by making him at least a little more transparent, he was not in the slightest sorry.

“Oh, don’t worry, I will let you get on with your fond farewell with a wild monkey then,” he said, unable to keep an angry undertone from his voice.

Mr Bahadur stared at him darkly. He handed the monkey the packet of banana leaves. At a quiet word, the animal jumped down from his shoulder and climbed back into the tree to rejoin its band. “I found him when he was an infant. He has helped me a few times, and I always try to find him again when I am in Bombay,” Mr Bahadur said, curtly, as if this was as much information as he was prepared to volunteer on the topic.

Will nodded. Then, when the silence dragged on, he said: “Mr Bahadur. I am not quarreling with your and the Admiral’s design for travelling North. But don’t you think we ought trust each other at least a little, if we are to pose as friends and business-partners? I barely know you, yet you look on me as if I have done you some harm. How have I offended you so?"

The Gurkha did not reply.

“Will you tell me how you got back to Bombay?”

Again, utter silence.

“Fine,” Will said, and then added, in Nepali: “Perhaps you will tell me whether you have heard of a Mr Tenzing Tharkay? He is my…” He groped for the right word, realizing he did not know the word for ‘godfather’, and finished, a little lamely, “Uncle.”

The answer came quickly and resentfully, in the same language. “I do not, and I wish to make one thing clear to you: No matter what I will have to pretend from today, I have never trusted, and will never trust, an Englishman.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: The Bombay formation has narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of the Maratha forces. The Indian dragons and aviators are bent on revenge for the destruction of their eggs, threatening to destroy the British presidencies at Bombay and Madras. Admiral Harcourt sidelines the East India Company officials to negotiate a ceasefire. However, the terms demand her son Tom and his dragonet Aouda, a highly venomous Indian breed, must be handed over as hostages. Little Will receives a temporary commission. He is not thrilled but faced with everybody else’s sacrifices cannot think of a way to refuse. Temeraire and his crew prepare to travel onwards to China via Madras using a Company ship, but an assassination attempt by the Company prompts a change of plans._

“You are without doubt the worst merchant I have ever seen,” Mr Bahadur said, eyeing the measly handful of copper coins Will had stacked up on the table between them, next to his own more impressive haul of silver rupees. “What, for a whole chest?”

“That, and three goats,” Will said, between his teeth.

He had no notion of the relative value of the local coinage, but even more importantly, he felt he owed no apology for not participating whole-heartedly in the foul trade. He would gladly have thrown the dratted chest into the next sewer instead of selling it, but there was little choice to replenish their funds. Nobody in the Maratha Empire accepted drafts on Rothschild’s bank, cattle was almost not to be had, and even sheep and goats were dearer than Will was used to from England. So he had accepted the herders' coppers and the goats without question, and watched the men carry away the chest from the Company’s storehouse, full to the brim with balls of raw opium the size of roundshot.

At least they did not have to worry about sleeping on the high roads. There were many old but well-appointed inns along the trade routes. Each had a generous courtyard for the trader’s dragons, mostly Himalayan and Pamir beasts since the Marathas would not let their own dragons undertake lowly carrying work, and each dragon-court was overseen by a lion-capped pillar of the ancient king Ashoka who had ordered the roads and shelters to be built many centuries ago. Will had found one of the pillars inscribed in Greek alongside the odd letters he had already encountered at the rock-temple at Nalkonda, allowing him to decipher an exhortation to all the Emperor’s subjects to live in peace and harmony in order to obtain a better rebirth, whatever this philosophical point might signify.

Most of the natives, Hindus and Mohammedans alike, seemed to ignore the weatherworn pillars and their faded decrees, but Mr Bahadur showed them a respect quite out of step with his usual casual irreverence. At Assaye he had even risked himself to a brawl by untying a team of carting oxen from a pillar and admonishing the owner in rapid-fire Marathi, on what charge exactly not even Temeraire had been able to follow, until the carter had fetched water and washed the animals' droppings off the pillar. Mr Bahadur was an endless puzzle, but one which Will had neither energy nor mind to solve.

“Three goats,” Mr Bahadur said now, shaking his head, “And how are we going to pay the tolls? The roads here are kept safe, but at a price.”

Will folded his arms. “Sir, you are taking advantage of me,” he said, “I understand the necessity of travelling as civilians. But we do not need to waste so much time in marketplaces instead of simply going north.” He would have liked to add that he had not failed to notice how a large part of the silver from the sale of the company’s opium went straight into Mr Bahadur’s pockets. The young soldier had thoroughly embraced their disguise and fitted himself out with a colourful tunic, trousers and cap in the way of the Himalayan merchants, padded and much too warm for the Indian summer, although he barely seemed to notice the heat.

“Ah, but I would not call it a waste,” Mr Bahadur argued, “And neither does Temeraire. We have heard where Lung Tien Qian is residing and which passes are closed. And if you have not noticed, no officials have bothered us, but that too comes at a price we cannot otherwise raise.”

Will could not reproach him directly, as Admiral Harcourt’s orders indeed allowed him to use the proceeds from the sale of the Company’s goods in whatever way he saw fit. And Temeraire’s enjoyment could not be disputed: England’s famous fighting dragon and former MP for the High Peaks was haggling with the verve of a Spitalfields hawker, tallying sums in his head and converting pennies to paisas as if he had never done anything else in his life. His only complaint of the country was that he was not allowed to eat the hallowed cows that dotted the streets and marketplaces, even if he offered to pay for them.

Mr Bahadur turned back to his bowl of dinner, mixing stew and rice with his fingers and bringing morsels to his mouth with practised ease, and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t mean to be difficult. If you prefer, you can simply be a passenger, until we reach China.”

This proposal, too, rankled. Will stared at his own dinner. He would have given a lot for a plate of plain eggs and bacon, preferably with a knife and fork. He finally resorted to lifting the bowl to his mouth to drink it straight down, rather than eating with his fingers like an unmannered savage.

“You ought not do that,” Mr Bahadur remarked, an instant too late, “It must be mixed with the rice, or else you may find it too spicy.”

Will pressed a hand to his mouth and forced himself to swallow, then, casting respectability aside, he groped for the rice bowl and stuffed a whole handful in his mouth to extinguish the blaze. Mr Bahadur patiently held out the water jug. Will could not trust his voice to carry the angry reply he wished to make and had to be content with glaring at the rascal. Mr Bahadur was the opposite of all he had heard about the exemplary Gurkha fighters: not constant, not loyal, likely not brave, and not in the least obedient.

“No,” he managed, finally, when he had swallowed some water. “I am prepared to do my part, but I am not peddling opium.”

“A noble sentiment,” Mr Bahadur said. “What do you mean to sell, then, of England’s many excellent wares?”

Will stared at him angrily, then he got up and left the table. He did not at all know how to reply, but enough was enough.

 

\--

 

The next day, they reached Bhopal, a handsome city of lakes, and set down in the marketplace next to a towering fort. Mr Bahadur went to pay his respects and bribes to the local Nawab’s officials and Will reluctantly unloaded their boxes and bundles from the belly-netting, taking a little consolation in the pleasure it gave Temeraire to see the fruits of his labour lined up in front of him. Temeraire was instantly pleased with the town, pointing out features of the colourful crowd and exotic architecture, and when Mr Bahadur returned, they fell to bartering with the local people and merchants. Will, feeling excluded on more grounds than language, sat down on one of the boxes and took out the Venetian pistol to clean it. Isabella had managed to salvage it for him, but looking at it now only depressed him further – it spoke vividly of Isabella and Teddy Hawkes, who had always fought over the cleaning task, and led him straight to worrying about all the ills that might have befallen the rest of their crew. They had parted at a town called Aurangabad, and Fiducia had given Temeraire her word to do all she could to see them safe to Madras. Lieutenant Ingram had been entrusted with Admiral Harcourt’s letter asking the commander of the Madras covert to slip them in on one of the Malay trading ships that did the Canton run, and have the Company know Temeraire and his captain had been abducted by vengeful Maratha warriors.

“Your English servant there,” someone exclaimed that moment, in Hindi, “Where did you find him? A prisoner of war?”

Will raised his head from his polishing, confused, and saw Mr Bahadur standing with two other merchants. The men had come accompanied by their dragon, a dappled, lightweight beast with a pair of curved horns and a collar adorned with tassels and small mirrors. She was talking to Temeraire in Durzagh, a magnificent knotted rug spread out between them. Will was no longer surprised at the sight: the Central Asian traders seemed perfectly happy to let their dragons conduct business on their behalf, and far from being mere beasts of burden, many of them enjoyed free reign of the purse-strings. Will wondered grimly whether the East India Company was aware that, indirectly, they were doing business with dragons.

The men were looking straight at him now. Mr Bahadur stood very upright and appeared for once unsure how to reply.

Will pushed himself up from the box and bowed to them, striving to keep his face blank. Then, inclining his head again to Mr Bahadur, he handed the gurkha the cleaned pistol, took the empty water cask from Temeraire’s harness and went away to fill it.

When he hauled it back, Temeraire held the carpet happily clasped in his talons. “That was very clever of you, Will!” he said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, “It was not nice they called you a servant, but I suppose we won’t see them again, and they gave me a very good price when they heard Mr Bahadur could keep an English servant, and,” he chuckled, sending the ground trembling as only a twenty-ton dragon can, ”will you credit it, they thought I am his dragon. They also gave me this!” He proudly presented a collar of similar make to the one the small piebald dragon had worn, bright woollen tassels and glinting mirrors. It was too small to go around his neck, so he had tied it around one forearm.

“I cannot blame them, my dear,” Will said, low.

“Whyever did you do that, Captain?” Mr Bahadur asked Will, bewildered, when he handed back the pistol on their way to the boarding house.

“You really have a very low opinion of my people, do you,” Will said, “and expect me to turn out the arrogant Englishman when it won’t do an ounce of good to anyone and make me look thoroughly ridiculous?”

Mr Bahadur looked taken aback. “I suppose I rather did,” he said, after a moment’s thought, “From prior experience.”

Will did not reply. There had been no cunning or calculation in his retreat from the marketplace, only the instincts of a boy who had grown up running under the feet of ministers and diplomats and knew how to remove himself from situations where he was not wanted or needed. He had learned to tread quietly, avoiding awkwardness like the time the Duke of Wellington himself, then Prime Minister of an unpopular Tory government, had called on his father and Temeraire to ask for support in some political matter. Fourteen-year-old Will had been careless enough to cross the entrance hall, and the Duke had exclaimed: “Admiral, is that your boy over there? He looks not half a handful… Have you thought of sending him to the army? It has formed many a character and will surely make a man of him. If he turns out a half-decent hand, I can easily get him a commission in my old 33rd…” Will had been forced to be introduced, but the horror on his face must have been plain, for Laurence had demurred quickly and the Duke had laughed very loudly. Afterwards, Will had hardly known what had been worse – the thought of being stuck in a tent on some godforsaken battlefield, having his character formed by being shouted at by redcoats, or his father’s pained expression at having to present him as his son.

Sharply recalling himself to his present situation, he concluded that even if his behaviour could not be called decorous, and his father would likely have found it disgraceful, it would have been perfectly ludicrous to stand on rank and precedence. After three days flying and toiling in the sweltering monsoon heat, free moments either spent paralysed with worry or retreating into the discipline of keeping up their logbook, he was dirty and unshaven, his clothes stained and his coat and tie gone, the overall impression thoroughly disreputable. When he had gone to fill the water cask at the bathing ghat by the lake, the women there had gathered their children and washing close and given him an absurdly wide berth.

“It… works, but you really don’t need to do it, if you do not like,” Mr Bahadur told him over dinner, guarded and evidently still bewildered at the idea of having acquired an English servant. He had ordered a plain dish of chicken delicately spiced with saffron in celebration of their successful trading day, although there was still no hint of civilised cutlery. “We have enough other goods now, like that carpet, if you should like to try your hand again, and,” he smirked, “thanks to our friends at the Company, it doesn’t matter if we don’t turn out a fantastic profit.”

“No, thank you. You would oblige me by carrying on as today, with me as your assistant, which appears to suit everyone,” Will said, wearily. His head hurt from the confusion and clamour of the market, and even after the comparatively small exertion of managing the boxes and water-cask, his every joint seemed to hurt.

Mr Bahadur looked at him in fresh surprise, and then suddenly, he smiled – the first real smile Will had seen in his stern face, a most surprising sight. “Ha. I will shake on that. If things go as they do today, we will make a fortune by the time we reach Awadh! And split it threeways, of course.” He leaned forward, real enthusiasm in his eyes. “I will teach you. Trading is much like fighting, you know. You must give it all your mind and keep your goal before your eyes, and everything follows from there.”

“Ah,” Will said, levelly, “And of course a mercenary of the Company would know all about that.”

The smile on Min Bahadur’s face died, and he drew back. “My father worked for a merchant, like my grandfather before him,” he said. “He crossed the highest passes in the service of the Company, before he died.”

“Then,” Will said, “I suppose nothing stands in the way of your success and fortune, but it has nothing to do with me.”

 

-

 

Temeraire slept in the dragon-court, curled tightly around their boxes and almost invisible in the dark of the night. Will clambered over his foreleg to fetch his bundle, trying not to wake the sleeping dragon – after flying in the heat and drenching rain, Temeraire deserved his rest. He stared at the blank logbook page by the light of the lantern he had brought, wondering how to continue.

_Today we reached Bhopal, sold five chests of the East India Company’s opium to an agent of the very same Company who will take it back to Bombay, pocketed the proceeds and bribed the local officials._

He snapped the book shut, frustrated.

Temeraire stirred behind him and opened an eye, bright with reflected light. “Will,” he asked, nudging him from behind, “what is wrong?”

“Oh, Temeraire, I am damned sorry to have woken you,” Will said, startling and drawing the blind over the lantern. “Nothing, I am well, thank you.”

“I don’t think you are,” Temeraire said, bringing out his tongue to sniff at him in the dark. “You look ill.”

Will waved a hand. “Nothing serious, just this heat not agreeing with me. And I suppose I could do with a wash.” He had been in half a mind to use his trip to the ghat to bathe, but the reception he had received there had entirely discouraged that plan.

Temeraire nodded and rose. “Yes. Let us go to the lake.”

Will tried to protest, but Temeraire looked at him severely. “If you do not want to put on nice clothes like Mr Bahadur, I cannot make you, but my captain should be clean,” he said. “Laurence would-“

“Fine!” Will interrupted indignantly, this reminder entirely unwelcome, and opened the lantern-blinds again. “Just let me fetch the rest of my clothes.”

The terraced steps that led down to the largest of the city’s lakes lay deserted, a half-moon glinting on the water. A few flat-bottomed barges were tethered along the bank and bobbed softly in the swell. Temeraire set Will down and nudged him towards the water, then padded in himself without the slightest hesitation. Will half-heartedly scrubbed at his laundry, then waded in further to wash as best he could, leaving the razor aside in the dark. But looking at Temeraire bathing with evident satisfaction, the drops running off his hide in gleaming rivulets, he left the wet pile of his clothes at the top of the stone steps and swam out to him. His limbs felt leaden and he was glad when Temeraire put out a claw to let him climb up. He stretched out on Temeraire’s back, dismayed to find his hands trembling and his teeth chattering. To be brought down so by a short burst of crawling was entirely embarrassing.

Temeraire tried to splash him as they had done when Will and Horatio were children, but when Will did not join in the frolics, he put his head around.

“What is it, Will?”, he asked. “Are you still angry that they called you a servant?”

“No, Temeraire, of course not.”

“Then you do not like being a trader?” Temeraire asked, anxiously, “I find it quite agreeable. I am sorry Laurence cannot see all the things we have already gotten, instead of all that opium.”

“It is… tolerable,” Will said evasively, privately glad Laurence was spared that sight. “You know father doesn’t think highly of opium.”

Temeraire’s ruff went up defensively. “Oh, I know. But we are not trying to keep it. We are trading it for other things, and surely it cannot be our fault what other people do with it, once we have given it to them. That is for them to decide. It is very useful after all. The Chinese legions use it to calm their cattle and sheep when they want to move them from one place to another, which Laurence and I taught the Allies, too. And the surgeons use it.”

Will bit his tongue. He had seen the storehouse in Bombay. The quantities held there, stacked up in shelves all the way to the ceiling, would have stupefied half the herds of China, more than anyone could ever have wanted, for that purpose.

 

\--

 

The next morning, Temeraire paced the dragon-yard impatiently. He was ready to go, he only needed Will and Mr Bahadur to load him again with their boxes and bundles – Afghan lapis lazuli, Bengal muslin, Arabian perfumes, sacks of spices, the beautiful Turkmen rug – and they could be off to the next city, the next market, Jhansi or even Gwalior which the little Himalayan dragon had told him about. But time was running away, and Little Will was late.

Finally, Mr Bahadur appeared.

“He has a fever,” he told Temeraire. “It is common, especially in this season.”

It took him an awfully long time to buckle up Temeraire’s harness all on his own. Mr Bahadur said they would have to leave some of the lovely chests behind as they were too heavy for him to move on his own, and Temeraire, who could lift them easily, could not conveniently manoeuvre them into the right places for them to be strapped down. Temeraire eyed them unhappily.

But he forgot all about his treasures when he caught sight of Will, who looked sick and pallid despite his sunburn and had to lean on Mr Bahadur to walk out to Temeraire. “I have caught a cold,” he said, trying to smile, “I always manage to… I am sorry to be such a nuisance.”

Temeraire gave a low concerned growl, remembering with dread how quickly men came down with sickness. He reproached himself for being so careless, taking him to the lake – the water might have given him a chill.

“It is nothing,” Will said. “Will you put me up?”

Temeraire’s eagerness to be on the way had all but died away. But neither Will nor Mr Bahadur would hear of staying and resting. Temeraire insisted on an extra pair of straps so Will might sleep if he liked to, and a blanket as he was shivering. Mr Bahadur muttered he thought it silly if not dangerous in the heat, but finally went to fetch one. Will accepted it mutely, wrapped it tightly about himself and all but slumped down on Temeraire’s back after clicking his carabiners in place, eyes already half-closed. Temeraire would have liked to put some other arrangements in place, a screen from the sun and perhaps some breakfast, but Will shook his head and told him he was comfortable. Mr Bahadur clicked his tongue disapprovingly and told Temeraire that there was nothing to be gained by tarrying, and the earlier they got out of the plains and into higher altitudes, the better.

“You think so?” Temeraire asked, his ruff pricking up.

He flew straight and true, without bothering to stop to rest or drink. Fear steeled his wings. When they set down outside the walls of Jhansi in the late evening, almost two hundred miles north-east, Temeraire was trembling with exhaustion, and to his dismay, the humid miasma seemed even worse.

“I need to be faster,” he told Mr Bahadur. “Pray go and get rid of these boxes and crates, if you can. I will be quicker without them.”

Mr Bahadur frowned, but he bowed and melted away into the dark, to return with a purple-striped dragon who looked at their things with a haughty air and named a price much, much too low. But Temeraire could not bring himself to argue, with Will already so much worse– when Temeraire had nosed at him, he had only muttered something unintelligible and barely opened his eyes. At least Mr Bahadur had thought of bringing along a physician. But after examining Will, the man prescribed no treatment other than water-soaked wrappings to keep the temperature down, not even a blood-letting or purgative as Temeraire had hoped. Mr Bahadur threw him a glance as if he expected Temeraire to be relieved, but Temeraire was not reassured, not reassured at all. He ate the skinny sheep Mr Bahadur had brought, hooves, fur and all, and did not take his eyes off Little Will. Mr Bahadur knelt next to the patient to apply the prescribed bandages and then tried to make him drink sips of water which Will seemed to disdain very much, turning his head away from the cup.

“Is there nothing else we can do?” Temeraire asked, disconsolately.

“It is the breakback fever,” Mr Bahadur said, unmoved. “It passes, usually. I am more worried about how we are going to carry on from here.”

Temeraire would have liked to ask what happened in the cases where it did _not_ pass, but Mr Bahadur had walked away to get out his rifle, checking it and slinging it over his shoulder. He tucked a handful of cartridges into his belt, next to the curved knife, and suddenly did not look much like a trader at all. “From what I have heard in the town, I think it will be safer to carry on at night. There will be a greater risk of losing our way, but we may avoid getting caught in the fray.”

“We will not lose our way. I know the constellations perfectly well,” Temeraire said indignantly, rising to his feet, “Laurence taught me them, and I can keep a bearing at night. We can go now, if you please.” And only as an afterthought, he inquired: “What fray do you mean, precisely?”

 

\--

 

In his fever dreams, Will bartered with Horatio over Temeraire, for ever more exorbitant sums. His brother pulled his sword and challenged him to fight it out to the blood. A shot exploded, he held a smoking pistol again, a faceless man felled in front of him and his hands spattered with blood. Temeraire roared in agony, unfolded his wings and flew away, without turning back, to a gleaming Chinese palace of gold and blood-red lacquer. Will shouted his name, but nobody answered. He yelled and cried. Someone put a cup to his mouth. The taste was bitter. He wanted to spit it out, but a hand tilted his head back, forcing him to swallow, and a merciful darkness descended.

He awoke drowsy. The air was cooler, the stifling heat broken by a crisp breeze.

Mr Bahadur knelt next to him holding a flask, his tired face thrown into sharp relief by the glow of the rising sun, and behind him Temeraire’s eyes loomed huge and worried. Will grasped the flask and swallowed greedily. But it was only clean water and brought no happy oblivion. He pushed it away. “The other one,” he rasped.

Mr Bahadur shook his head.

Will tried to plead, but he could not string together a sentence. His body ached with every movement, his skin itching and raw. Sleep overcame him again and he found himself returning to England alone, Temeraire gone. Nobody chided him, as if nothing else could reasonably have been expected, nobody seemed to take notice of him at all – his father, his mother, Mr Tharkay, his brother, his sister, all looked straight through him with hard, disappointed eyes, no matter how much he begged, shouted or cried. At long last, the cup was put to his mouth again. He greedily swallowed the bitter draught.

Reality filtered back by degrees, intruding on his senses in various unpleasant ways until it could no longer be ignored. Biting smoke, rough scratchy blankets against his sore skin, and finally a most rancid smell, like butter left to molder for months, mixed with some sharp sulphurous concoction. He opened his eyes and looked straight into the face of a woman bent over him – a very old woman, her face wizened like a small winter apple. She cried out when she saw him stir, then beamed at him toothlessly and rubbed more of the disgusting paste onto his chest, muttering to herself about how well the balm worked and how it had never failed to bring anyone back from the dead. She wore a necklace of turquoise and coral pearls. Her long steel-grey plait was braided with red ribbons, and she spoke Nepalese.

Will tried to back away, but he only managed to scramble back a few inches and then got no further, coming up against a wall of rough-hewn stones. He snatched at the blanket half-covering his legs to pull it up, self-conscious and blushing: he was perfectly naked, lying on a pile of felted rugs and goat furs next to a brazier filled with glowing coals.

A low door opened and Mr Bahadur stooped inside, crossing the small hut with a few steps. He knelt down next to the woman. She addressed him in a language Will could not easily follow, some local dialect most likely, the rhythm reminiscent of Chinese more than Nepali. She seemed to admonish him, playfully clipping his ear. But Mr Bahadur remained grave and unsmiling, and made only brief replies.

“How are you?” Mr Bahadur finally asked him in English.

Will squinted at Mr Bahadur’s face through the smoke of the open hearth. The young gurkha looked rather battered himself: a gash across his lip and one hand bandaged. Will pointed to it. “What happened?”

Min Bahadur shrugged. “Temeraire could not be persuaded to keep up much of a disguise, bent as he was on getting you out of the plains,” he said, “The Maharaja of Awadh has never been on friendly terms with the Marathas, and took the news of them letting a Nakhara dragon be bound to an Englishman as reason to declare war, so we have had rather a rough passage, being taken for Marathas.” He smirked. “I am sorry I had to put you out of it, but you would not keep quiet.”

“Temeraire,” Will managed, “How is he?”

“I will tell him you are recovering and take you to see him tomorrow,” Mr Bahadur said, evasively, “Rest now.”

“Tom Riley?”, Will asked, trying to raise his head, “Anything of him, and Aouda?”

Mr Bahadur pushed him back down. “Sleep.”

When Will woke again, Mr Bahadur and the old woman were gone, and instead, a girl squatted by the open hearth-fire in the middle of the room. She stirred a pot and eyed him across the low flames.

“It is boiling over,” he told her in Nepali, “Oh - no, never mind - “

She screamed and let the spoon drop into the cauldron. “You can… speak?” she stammered, torn between fascination and shock.

“Of course I can speak,” he said. “My name is Will. Will you tell me yours?” He pushed himself up onto his elbows.

But before she could reply, the door was flung open again and Mr Bahadur reappeared. Looking between the young woman and Will, he tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the door with a sharp word. She got up and left, not without a last curious look at Will. Mr Bahadur lifted the bubbling pot off the stove and glared at him.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Will protested, “I only asked-“

“Get up.”

“Where are my clothes?”

Mr Bahadur went to a corner of the room and returned with a bundle which he dropped next to Will. “Filthy enough to make rags. Take these.”

“If you will give me your back.”

Mr Bahadur snorted, but duly turned back to the fire.

The new clothes consisted of a buttonless shirt closed with a woven sash, a wide pair of trousers and a padded jerkin dyed a dark indigo. Will put them on and surprised himself by finding them comfortable. He caught sight of his boots next to the door, but his other belongings were nowhere to be seen. He had already resigned himself to the idea of his glasses being gone for good when Mr Bahadur turned around and handed them to him. He did not pause to listen to Will’s thanks. “Can you stand?”

“Yes,” Will said, determined, but he needed Mr Bahadur’s outstretched hand to get to his feet. He almost hit his head on the low ceiling and had to steady himself against the stone wall, suddenly dizzy. He blinked until the fit passed. “Can I see Temeraire now?”

But Mr Bahadur held out a wooden bowl, filled with a portion of gruel from the cauldron. Will took it, his stomach suddenly clenching with hunger, and did not pause to ponder exactly what it was. It tasted delicious.

Mr Bahadur had opened a chest and straightened up now, holding out a spoon. But Little Will had already emptied the bowl with his fingers, checking himself just before lifting it to his mouth to lick it clean. They looked at each other for a moment, surprised. Then Mr Bahadur put the spoon aside and shrugged. “Fine then. Let us go.”

He left the small hut without turning back and Will followed him, discreetly wiping his fingers, his legs less unsteady now that the gruel warmed him. But walking past the painted chest, he paused, transfixed by the spoon – silver, European-made, and entirely out of place in the small ramshackle hut. With quick resolve and only a small pang of guilt, he lifted the lid of the chest to glance inside.

He almost let it slam shut in surprise. There was an entire silver cutlery set, neat in a box lined with faded velvet, and underneath it, he glimpsed the corner of a Wedgwood saucer delicately edged in green and gold with an ornately twined monogram, _GT_. He had seen its likeness almost every Sunday of his childhood at Castelton Hall, when the best porcelain was brought out with ceremony, to be placed on his godfather’s table.

 

\--

 

Temeraire was tired from a week’s hard flying, stretching himself to the limit. But his aching muscles, sore chest and the ball in his left leg paled by comparison with the worries on his mind. Little Will had not recognized him at all when they had arrived in Mr Bahadur's village, eyes glazed with fever. Mr Bahadur had wanted to avoid the village and hide in one of the other valleys, but with Will slipping ever deeper into delirium, he had finally pointed Temeraire to the small settlement that clung to the side of a mountain like a hardy patch of moss to a rock. He had reassured Temeraire that old Heena knew her work, so with a heavy heart, Temeraire had let them take Little Will away to one of the huts, windowless and with a door too small and low for Temeraire to see inside.

Mr Bahadur’s people treated him with great courtesy: He had been allocated a prime spot in the paved yard of the village temple, a domed structure with an odd pair of eyes painted onto it, framed by a line of colourful pennants. They had brought out a collection of rugs and furs to cover the flagstones so he did not have to lie on the bare ground – the days were pleasantly warm even at this altitude, but the nights brought a chill. Everyone kept asking him whether he had eaten, and when he said he had not, one of the villagers immediately went away to fetch food, smoked meat, clarified butter or a skinny goat, tiny morsels for a dragon his size, but Temeraire could see it was as much as they could afford. The people smiled often, but their village looked wretched, none of the streets paved and the blue smoke of dried cow dung scratching his throat in the mornings. They fully expected him to eat the offerings, though, and looked dejected when he did not want to, as if his refusal somehow reflected badly on the giver. For politeness’ sake he forced himself to swallow the food, until he realized that if he said he had just eaten, they did not feel obliged to bring him more. He had his peace, then, but now the hours stretched away empty and intolerable, to be filled with brooding. Temeraire lay flattened to the square, stared at the towering mountains and the clouds wheeling above, and only stirred from time to time to lick at the wound in his leg where the musket ball had gone in.

“An interesting place to go,” he imagined Laurence saying to him, sitting down wearily on Temeraire’s forearm to look over the village.

“You think so?” Temeraire asked, sidling his hindquarters out of the way so imaginary Laurence would not see he had managed to get himself shot.

“Yes, so… cleverly built. And the scenery. I know we have crossed these mountains before, but it always… takes one again. Their sheer size and majesty.”

“Yes,” Temeraire said, “The people are nice, too.”

“I am glad to hear it, my dear,” imaginary Laurence replied, and then they didn’t speak for a while. It was nice to speak with Laurence, and equally nice to be silent with Laurence.

“May I ask a question?”, he finally heard Laurence ask, and Temeraire flattened his ruff in unhappy anticipation.

“Of course, what is it?”

Imaginary Laurence shifted a little uneasily. “Pray tell me… what have you to say of Little Will, and his inclination… for the life?”

Temeraire glanced at the small, miserable hut. Of course Laurence did not know, could not know, would not know for months, if indeed… He swallowed. “Laurence, I am sorry, but…”

Imaginary Laurence glanced at him, sighed, and looked away.

“No, Laurence, it is not what you think!” Temeraire tried again, “He _was_ a good captain. You would have been proud. He…”

He faltered again and did not know how to continue, remembering with dread the time Little Will had been similarly ill, as a little boy, ill enough for Tharkay to send for a chaplain – and Tharkay, who had very a low opinion of clergymen, would only do so when there was no other reasonable thing to do. Laurence had understood this immediately when one of the doorkeepers had handed him Tharkay’s note during a long parliament debate. Temeraire remembered how the colour had drained from Laurence’s face and how he had flung down his red robe, the beautiful miniver fur trailing in the dust. Laurence had not even wanted to stop to swap Temeraire’s parliamentary sash for a harness and had paid no mind to the commotion their hasty departure from Westminster had caused, the mirth it gave their political enemies and the consternation of their friends. When they had arrived in the Peaks, Tharkay had come out to meet them, and Temeraire had seen Laurence tensing, steeling himself for a blow. But then Tharkay had put a hand on Laurence’s shoulder and said: “The ill weeds grow apace. Just ten minutes ago the boy sat up and asked for a book. I am afraid I have rather spoiled him.”

Laurence had been quite unable to speak, first embracing Tharkay and then motioning at Temeraire to excuse him, before rushing into the house. The next day they had gone to Sheffield to buy a whole pile of very handsomely illustrated books. They had made paper boats of the newspapers deriding the starts of Admiral Laurence and his fractious dragon. Temeraire and Horatio had sunk the small armada in the mill pond while Laurence had watched from the shore, smiling, Little Will curled up against his shoulder.

Temeraire stared at his empty forearm. To tell Laurence that Little Will had sickened and died, and watch Laurence’s face grow ashen, was more than he could bear.

“You see, Laurence,” he tried again, “He wanted to stay in China. He liked it very much, being a Prince, and did not want to come back with me…”

“Who did?” someone asked.

“He has been like this since we arrived,” Mr Bahadur said, “He has worn himself out, poor creature.”

“But he is injured! Temeraire! Temeraire, look at me!”

One of the villagers had run up to him and scaled his foreleg to wave both arms in his face. Temeraire shook his head and blinked in confusion. But then he saw, and a tremendous wave of relief flooded over him: it was not one of the villagers at all, but Little Will, shouting at him and very much alive.

 

\--

 

Temeraire needed much convincing to let Will out of his claws again. He nosed at him in the unfamiliar clothes as if he suspected some ruse, and inquired whether he was hungry, thirsty, cold, or otherwise unwell. Will, in turn, was shocked to see the signs of Temeraire’s encounter with the Awadh border patrols, worst of all a spiked musket-ball embedded in his leg.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Temeraire told him, low, “The Awadhi dragons were worse off, after I roared at them. I tried to explain to them we were not Marathas at all, but they would not listen, and tried to shoot you and Mr Bahadur, so I had no choice…”

Little Will put his cheek to Temeraire’s side. He sat with him and stroked him until Temeraire, exhausted, finally put his head between his talons and went to sleep. He then took a closer look at the musket wound, but the edges looked clean. He felt uneasy about it, but finally settled it in his mind that he would get it seen to as soon as they reached China, where the state of dragon-surgery was likely to be much further advanced than anything that could be contrived in their present situation. He checked the harness and was relieved to find the logbook, compass and chronometer still in their places, and tucked away in the same case, there was the small turquoise and crystal locket Tharkay had sent him. He took it and made his way back to the old woman’s hut, determined to ask her for a posset for Temeraire’s leg and offer the pendant in recompense. But she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found Mr Bahadur.

He had lit a handful of tallow candles and an incense stick and sat in front of a small gilded shrine in the corner of the room, cross-legged and silent. Will waited patiently by the door, but when the minutes dragged and Mr Bahadur neither spoke nor moved, he finally stepped closer and sat down next to him.

Mr Bahadur threw him a glance that made it plain he was not welcome. Will tried to ignore it. He did not want to intrude on whatever odd ritual the young man was performing, and was by no means ungrateful for the care that had likely preserved his life, but he wished to at least be told how to carry on from here. Taking him out to Temeraire, Mr Bahadur had stared fixedly ahead and ignored both the crowd of village children and the two yapping street dogs that had fallen in with them, familiarly, and although some of the villagers had looked up from their work and waved at them, he had not stopped, let alone introduced Will to anyone. Will knew the gurkha had no reason to regard him, but it still seemed odd to drag him to a village on the roof of the world and then pretend to have nothing to do with him – he might have abandoned him in the plains and saved himself the trouble.

“May I light a candle for my brother?” he finally asked, low. Mr Bahadur shrugged and edged across one of the stumps. Will lit it and placed it in front of the small altar, muttering a Lord’s Prayer in his head as a guard against blasphemy.

For a while, they both looked at the lights in silence. Then Will held out the locket. “Can you give this to the old lady, from me, the one who looked after me?”

Mr Bahadur stared at it and made no shifts to accept it.

Growing exasperated, Will put it in his hand – where no good opinion had been formed, none could be lost. He felt tired again and his head was beginning to hurt.

“Don’t be so churlish,” he said, “What, you cannot bear to accept an Englishman’s gratitude? You think all of us thieves and rascals? Just take it. Sell it if you like. Or, if you don’t want anyone to see it, you may put it in the chest over there with Mr Tharkay’s porcelain and pretend it does not exist.”

Min Bahadur looked like he would have liked to strike him, whether on account of the insolent address or the admission of prying into his personal things, but he mastered himself. He set the small jewelled box down on the floor and bowed his head to it with his palms placed together in front of his face, and finally put it on one of the niches in the carved shrine. It sat there as if it had always been a part.

When Will had already given up the thought that Mr Bahadur might speak, the young man suddenly said, with a defiant note: “It is my family’s porcelain.”

Will’s heart jumped at the breach suddenly open before him, but he tried to keep his voice level as he said: “I sincerely doubt it, sir. From what I could see, it is a tea set made under commission for a British family, initialled even. It would be very unlikely to come up for sale in this part of the world.”

Mr Bahadur shook his head angrily. “No, because we did not buy it. My great-aunt received it when she married an Englishman, an officer of the Company's.”

He abruptly fell silent, as if he had given away too much.

“Indeed?” Will asked. “So you have relatives in England?”

“I do not, and am glad I don’t,” Mr Bahadur spat. “He was a thief and rascal, and brought great shame on my family.”

“I am… sorry to hear it.”

“Oh, nothing for _you_ to feel sorry about. He took her away and promised her all the things in the world, but the British women in Kathmandu and Madras treated her worse than a servant and he did nothing to stop them, proud and wicked as he was. She returned broken. She had a son, but the Englishman came and took him away also, and grandmother says the boy died, as it was plain the Englishman did not want him or look after him at all, and they never heard of him again.”

“And the trader’s name was… George Tharkay?” Will ventured.

Mr Bahadur glared at him. “We do not mention that name.”

Unbefitting as it was, Will could have laughed out aloud. “But Mr Bahadur, you are entirely mistaken. Your great-aunt’s son lives. I know him well. His name is Tenzing Tharkay and he is well-respected, one of the foremost men in the shire.”

Mr Bahadur did not seem as surprised as he might have been. But he put back his shoulders defiantly and flicked a hand, dismissive. “If he is alive, why did he never come here?”

“I… well… I do not know,” Will professed. He had always thought Tharkay had no family except for the cousins he sometimes alluded to, with whom he was not on speaking terms. He had never talked about his mother. “Perhaps he… does not know where you live," he said, knowing it was an absurd suggestion as Tharkay would have been perfectly capable of finding out that sort of information. Will could only guess at what had motivated his silence, but he could entertain the notion that Tharkay preferred to be dead to his Nepalese relations rather than be ostracized on account of his father’s deeds.

Mr Bahadur shook his head. “I will tell you why,” he said. “Because if he grew up an Englishman, his father will have taught him to hate and look down on people like us.”

“I cannot credit that,” Will said, and then abruptly looked up, a thought striking him forcefully. “I cannot credit that at all. No, you must come with me to meet him. Mr Tharkay has no children, and his cousins’ family have no claim to his estate, they settled a lawsuit that way, many years ago. It should be your due and your family's!”

He abstractly knew what followed on from that simple fact – at present, he himself stood to inherit his godfather’s estate, assuring him of a not lavishly rich, but comfortable future where he might pursue his scientific interests and entertain his siblings and their dragons whenever they should like to visit. He might even have married, some day. But there could be no question of that if Tharkay had blood relations with a much stronger claim. However, he reprimanded himself, his awkward position made it all the more crucial to undertake the task – after all, if he did not restore Mr Bahadur and his relations to their rightful due, he was no better than the villains who had once tried to cheat Tharkay out of his inheritance.

Mr Bahadur blinked at him. “I do not need him. I have my family here,” he said.

“But don’t you understand?” Will exclaimed, “Your family do not need to be poor! You do not need to take service with the Company, nor anyone at all, and-”

“I cannot take service with the Company again,” Mr Bahadur interrupted him angrily, “even if they had not committed their crimes. A Gurkha regiment will not have a deserter back! I have shamed my family enough without also going to look for some English relation who will likely shut his door in my face.” He exhaled sharply, throwing a look at the shrine with its candles. Then he rose and left the hut.

 

\--

 

“So they are all family?” Temeraire said, low and oddly pleased as he looked at the villagers gathered around him.

Will nodded, a tad worried – he knew Temeraire’s possessive instincts, and since Temeraire had pronounced Tharkay a member of his _ayllu_ , he imagined the dragon might jump to the conclusion that he had some claim on the hillmen, too. “Most of them, anyways.”

He had tried to scratch out a family tree to send to Mr Tharkay, along with their next letter, but it had been quite hopeless. Unbending a little, Mr Bahadur had started to introduce them to him, a whole bunch of uncles and aunts and even more cousins, nieces and nephews, the precise degree unfathomable as many of them shared the same names and he had quickly worked himself into a perfect confusion. The girl who had been so fascinated with the exotic sight of him was Min’s second cousin, as far as he could follow, and half the village children were in some way connected, also. Will had learned that Mr Bahadur himself was an orphan and had been brought up by the old woman, Heena, the village elder and his grandmother’s sister if he had the term correctly – Tharkay’s aunt. He began to feel very sorry for Tharkay, for having had to forego so large and gregarious a family.

Their departure gave cause for a celebration of sorts, with the villagers bowing low to Temeraire to present him with yet more offerings of food and gifts, which he accepted a little embarrassed. “Will,” he said, “they will not stop giving me things. Is there anything I can do for them?”

“I do not know, my dear,” he said, and, after conferring with Mr Bahadur, he suggested: “Mr Bahadur says a Celestial’s visit is a great blessing and they do not expect anything in return, but, if you want, you may clear away those boulders from the pass. They came down with a mudslide last winter.” He pointed to one of the mountainsides.

“Oh, of course!” Temeraire said, gladly flinging himself into the air to roar at the obstructing rocks, not content merely to clear the old path by sending them shattering and crumbling, but then also widening the pass with sweeps of his talons and tail and finally using a sharp rock to deepen the foot-holds in the steep face that led up to the ridge.

“Do you think it is good enough?” he panted when he landed next to Will again.

The villagers, who had watched in awe, cheered him and seemed even more eager to press their meagre belongings on Temeraire, so Will was glad when Mr Bahadur finally nodded at him to go. They were obliged to kneel down in front of Heena and the village priest, clad in a saffron robe, to accept a blessing, and then went aboard Temeraire, Will with an extra blanket at Temeraire’s insistence, although the fever and shivers had ceased their hold. Then Temeraire took flight and the small village melted away to a speck of dust lost in the towering mountains that rose up around them, serene and silent.

They reached the first Chinese milestone by the next morning, cleverly inlaid with opals that reflected the light of the rising sun.

“No, Captain,” Mr Bahadur said, when Will broached the topic one final time, “I have no wish to come to England to beg. I have the silver the Admiral has paid me, which is enough capital to begin with, so I will take to the trade routes again. Who knows, one day I might even convince a dragon to partner with me. Although I suppose an English servant will be hard to come by, which is a shame.”

Will shook his hand. “I wish you every success,” he said, sincerely, and then handed him a piece of paper on which he had carefully written Tharkay’s direction and that of his father in London. “You must promise me to call, if you ever come to England. If you will permit me to say so, I think you and Mr Tharkay will get along famously.”

Mr Bahadur tucked the sheet away in his jerkin unperturbed, and suddenly there was the wide flash of his smile again. “Thank you. One day, I might even learn to read.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: As per Admiral Harcourt’s plan, Little Will and Temeraire separate from the rest of their crew to reach China overland, disguised as a pair of merchants and aided by Min Bahadur. Temeraire finds he enjoys trading, including the sale of opium, much to Will’s chagrin. Before they reach the Himalayas, Will catches a nasty fever, so Min and Temeraire have to manage the final stretch across the warlike Awadh kingdom. In Nepal, Will discovers more about his godfather’s roots, but Min turns down the offer to accompany him back to England to meet Tharkay._

The pavilion was small and economically built in brick. It fairly paled in comparison with the heavyweights’ pavilions clustered on the cliffs overlooking the Channel, but its owner had tastefully decorated her front garden with rocks, geodes and a few exotic seashells, discreetly fastened to the ground so her larger neighbours were not tempted to carry them away. Laurence walked past a giant clam and paused to look at a glittering piece of volcanic stone. He wondered what it was called – a sketchy memory of reading the _Manual of Mineralogy_ with Temeraire rising in his head, blurred by the years and a lack of real enthusiasm on his part. Back then, he had read whole chapters of the dry treatise without pause, buoyed by the happiness it had given his young dragon.

There were steps on the gravel path, and a woman cleared her throat behind him.

“I am sorry, but the hours for petitioners are between ten and twelve. My mistress is busy and does not like being disturbed, so I must ask you to call again tomorrow…” She broke off when he turned his head to look at her, her eyes suddenly widening. “But… Admiral Laurence? Can it be you?”

“Mrs Elsinore,” he said, straightening from his contemplation of the rock, one hand pressed to his aching back. He raised his hat to her. “I did not meet Perscitia in parliament this week. I hope she is well? Do you think she can be prevailed upon to see me? It will not take long.”

“Yes, of course – do come in, Your Lordship! Can I get you anything? Will you take tea?”

“That is very kind, but no, thank you.” After all these years, he still flinched at _Your Lordship._

Temeraire’s marble pavilion at Castleton Hall was a grand, airy and somewhat impractical edifice in the Chinese style, but Perscitia had been thriftier in her planning, with solid walls and an entrance chamber that doubled as a windbreak. The walls had been painted to resemble columns and gothic arches in an odd jumble of architectural styles. Laurence’s cane clicked on the geometric floor tiles as he followed the secretary inside.

Perscitia was busy at a writing frame. Diagrams and sketches were tacked to the walls: cogwheels, screws, pistons and other machines of her own design. She had never learned to write, but instead devised a curious system of claw-marks to stand in for letters and numbers, which Mrs Elsinore fluently translated into Latin characters on paper.

The small blue dragon looked up when she heard him approach. “Oh, Admiral – have you come about the factory bill? What obstruction have they come up with, this time? The wretches… and I foolishly thought I could devote half a week to my newest idea…” She cast a wistful look at her sketches. “A way to communicate messages over long distances, without the need for couriers.”

“Should you be thinking up such a thing?” Laurence asked, apprehensively. He could not make head or tail of the diagrams before her. “Will it not put our couriers out of work, and all the dragons who make a living in the postal service?”

“Oh,” Perscitia said, nettled, “No, you don’t need to worry about that. Nobody is going to listen to me, anyways, they never do. They only laugh at me and make me do silly little tricks in my head, things that would put a hatchling to shame. As if it were so very difficult to square the number seventy-eight in one's head…” She spoke with dignified hauteur, but her wings drooped unhappily.

Laurence bowed. “Forgive me, Perscitia. I have not come to criticize your work, and not about the bill either. I need to ask your help in an… altogether different matter. Are you at liberty tomorrow, perchance?”

She nodded, puzzled. “But what do you need me for, if not the bill?”

“I…” Laurence began, and broke off again. It was a whimsical idea. He could already see the cartoons in the newspapers, the bucket of spite poured out over his head to the detriment of the other important issues he ought to be lending the little influence he could, by now, bring to bear. But he knew that if he did not make the attempt, he would reproach himself for the rest of his days.

He cleared his throat. “I am sending a servant up to Oxford tomorrow to collect my son’s belongings, and have an appointment to call on one Professor Owen and also one of the university’s chancellors. I was wondering whether… in short, you would do me a great service if you accompanied me, and brought some of your work along.”

 

\--

 

Little Will pulled up the bucket, made of sheepskins, and poured it into the shallow trough by the well. It was late July, but the water running over his fingers was ice-cold.

Temeraire lapped it up eagerly. “Isn’t it odd,” he said, licking drops off his face while Will refilled the bucket, “that we haven’t met any Chinese dragons yet? When I was travelling with Laurence, the Emperor and his legions kept the borders of China under guard at all times.”

“Perhaps it is very peaceful at the moment,” Will said. He for his part was entirely happy to be alone, and despite the nagging worries about their crew still on his mind, he was beginning to enjoy this part of their journey.

The dry steppe of Qinghai province stretched away around them, a rippling sea of grass rimmed by tall blue mountains. Every now and then they saw the criss-crossing paths of animal herds leading to water holes or, rarely, to a well like the one where they were now resting. The nomadic herders’ camps could sometimes be glimpsed in the distance. But there were enough wild mules and goats for Temeraire to feed himself, and Will was content with the dried and cured food Min’s family had pressed on him, the tip of the iceberg of gifts he had been unable to refuse, so they did not need to seek out company.

They flew with the help of Temeraire’s compass and the sparse milestones and had hours to talk about mathematics, philosophy or natural history, with nobody observing them or needing to be observed. Temeraire in particular rejected the notion of the world’s creation in seven days, when Will told him of a book by a fellow called Lyell he had recently read. Temeraire argued that if dragons could be crossed and new surprising breeds arise by chance, for instance a Celestial from the mating of two Imperials where no one could claim God had a hand in it, it stood to reason the same thing could have happened to other animals, or even men.

“I have nothing against Laurence’s god, but I think he is given more credit than he deserves,” Temeraire said, belligerently, “He may have put things there to start with, but he cannot have created everything. And if people at your university say otherwise, they are very stupid, and if you want, I will go there and tell them so.”

Will was glad these blasphemous notions were shouted into an empty steppe, rather than put before any of his professors. A word of it would have seen him more thoroughly expelled than he had already managed for himself. However, he could not help smiling at Temeraire’s enthusiasm, and imagined showing him the fossils in the zoology archive. It was nothing more than a flight of fancy, of course – the dragon ban was in place, university law set in stone, and even if he had not been suspended, they would hardly have let him borrow any of the collection to show to a dragon.

After two days, the grassy high plateau gave way to rugged valleys shrouded in conifer forests, with clear lakes and increasing signs of human habitation – tilled fields, small villages, shrines in the forests or hermitages perched against steep precipices. They saw a few small dragons now, resting between the houses in the villages or helping to work the fields. There was even a fort on one of the mountains, red banners streaming out from the roofs, and they flew close enough to be seen, but no wings rose to meet them.

Temeraire grew disgruntled at the lack of attention. “They ought to welcome a Celestial,” he said, “And you are a prince, after all!”

“I sure am not,” Will laughed, bending forward to catch a better view of a splendid pagoda passing underneath Temeraire’s rippling shadow.

The next morning, he knelt on a flat stone by a clear mountain river, scoured smooth by the spring tides and warmed by the rising sun. He had spread their maps out in front of him and weighed them down with pebbles – old maps from the Corps archive in Bombay, the survey not materially changed since his father’s and Temeraire’s Chinese expedition of the year six. Temeraire was still asleep in a forest clearing a few hundred yards away. Will glanced at their chronometer, the instrument too unchanged since the years six or earlier still – of a sturdy naval make, it had clearly given neither his father nor Horatio any cause for replacement. He looked at it for a moment, his thoughts wandering, then he shook his head and bent low over the maps. They needed to decide whether it was time to turn southwards, for Canton, or continue on their eastern bearing. That moment, branches splintered and cracked in the forest in front of him.

Will looked up, into the face of a heavyweight red dragon.

 _Shao-lung_ , Scarlet Flower, his brain supplied unhelpfully.

He scrambled backwards to dodge the claw raking the air where he had sat, slipping off the rock and into the pebble bed of the river shore, his hands already in the water. The red beast padded closer, growling low in its throat.

Will stared at it. There were bags crammed with grain and rice, a few copper and jade statues perhaps pilfered from a temple, and even a small dead pig, freshly killed and bleeding, all slung onto the dragon’s dirty and worn silk harness.

The dragon lowered his head to sniff at their maps with his pointed snout. A pair of horns swept back from his brow, and the elongated, jagged scales around his eyes and neck lent him a fierce, lion-like air. His eyes were bulging and yellow. He carelessly shoved the maps aside and caught sight of the compass and chronometer.

“We will have those,” he growled.

A human being slid off his back, fleet-footed. His face was hidden behind a shawl drawn up all around his face. The dragon used a talon to slash open the bundle of Will’s belongings on the next stone and gave a pleased rumble when he saw the small handful of silver rupees. His rider, meanwhile, was running a finger over the chronometer, holding it up to the light to look at it in puzzlement. The time in England was twenty to eleven.

Will pushed himself to his feet. “No! Not that one. Temeraire!” he screamed and threw himself at the thief to wrench the instrument from his grasp.

They both went down amidst the pebbles of the shore, wrestling. Will managed to land a blow on the other’s eye and his opponent let go of his loot, but when Will lunged to snatch it up and left his side unguarded, he was bowled over by a powerful kick to the ribs. There was a crack and a burst of pain, squeezing all air out of his lungs and sending him headlong into the water. Gasping and wet, he threw himself around and caught both his arms around the thief’s legs, an undignified maneuver that nevertheless succeeded at bringing them both down together, grappling. The red dragon roared and lunged forward, but they were so intertwined that he could not get a claw or tooth in without risking injury to his companion.

Then Temeraire roared out in the forest behind them, flattening a tree, and threw himself at the smaller dragon.

“Surrender,” he growled, his teeth at the nape of the red dragon’s neck.

His opponent suddenly let go of Will and threw himself down, raising up his arms. “No!” he cried, in a high, ringing voice, “Don’t do him any harm! I beg you, spare him – take me!”

Will, still furious, took hold of the thief’s wet hair and jerked his head back. His father’s and brother’s precious chronometer lay half-buried amidst the pebbles, the glass covering the clock-face smashed to pieces and water running in to ruin the fine mechanism. “Show your face,” he scowled, and tore away the shawl.

He let go immediately and took a step back, appalled. The pale face, with a purpling eye and bleeding lip, belonged to a young woman.

 

\--

 

“August One, we are shamed that this should have been your welcome into your rightful home. We have been trying to hunt down these robbers for the last few days,” Song said, “But again and again, they evaded our grasp.” She bowed to Temeraire. “The whole of the kingdom rejoices at your presence which is a ray of light in times of darkness.”

“Well,” Temeraire said, graciously inclining his head to the Emerald Glass dragon, “It seems very shocking to me that you are letting brigands run loose in your provinces, and not a single dragon to meet us at the border. What if anyone should try to invade?”

Song and her companion had caught up with them at the riverbed shortly after the Shao-lung's captain had surrendered herself, her dragon watching hunched and unhappy with Temeraire’s teeth still at his neck. Will had been very squeamish about getting her hands properly shackled and had not searched her for weapons.

“Then she must give you her parole,” Temeraire had suggested, sensibly, but Will had refused. “Temeraire, she is a woman. I cannot coerce her,” an entirely ridiculous notion when by the looks of it, she had just broken a rib for him.

So Temeraire had been very grateful for the arrival of Song, a grimly impressive legionary dragon with many battle-scars and a splendid silk harness, the sort of thing he would have liked to see at the border – but better late than never. Song’s captain, a stern senior aviator by the name of Lanfen, had taken charge of the prisoner, and her crew had locked a heavy board around the robber’s neck so she could not run away or attack anyone again. By that time, a group of villagers had dared to come out of the forest carrying pitchforks and flails, and, after bending low to Temeraire, started to clamour for the return of the stolen goods.

Song bent even lower. “We stand in shame, Honoured Lord. Hard times have befallen us. In your magnanimity, allow this humble and worthless one to arrange your escort to Beijing.”

“But we do not want to go to Beijing,” Temeraire said, a little hesitant. He would not at all mind going to the summer palace again, or meeting Mei. But he mastered himself, recalling his duty as Laurence would have called it, and valiantly said: “We need to go to Canton. My crew is there waiting for me. And I need to find Ning.”

Song blinked. “Then, perhaps, you would like to call on your honourable Mother on your way?”

Temeraire was torn. “Of course I would like to see her… but how long will it take to reach her?”

“She is very near, taking the mountain air near Chengdu,” Song said, "Allow me to show you the way."

 

\--

 

Only a formality, they had told him. A permit to be written, and suitable arrangements to be made for his reception, all of which dragged on for days. Temeraire was annoyed: As if he needed permission to travel through his home country, with news as alarming as they were. The Company and the British superintendent of trade at Canton, emboldened by Ning’s support, had set up a blockade of the Pearl River to force the Chinese to lift some form of regulation newly imposed on the trade out of the Southern ports.

Qian’s voice had been level as she told him of these things, the way one talks of an unpleasant but distant storm unlikely to wet one’s wings, but Temeraire was well aware of the pain her granddaughter’s behaviour must have caused her, and dreaded to think of the consequences. The Chinese Empire would send its legions, thousands of dragons to drive the British ships out of river and make trouble for Laurence back in parliament, as his political enemies would surely find some way of blaming him for it. The very thought made Temeraire's blood run cold, and every fibre of his body itched to fly straight on.

But for now, he was taking tea with his mother and Will.

“So Xiang tells me you are a scholar?” Qian asked, evidently pleased with this information. The delicate golden net suspended from her ruff jingled softly as she inclined her head to look at him more closely.

Will flinched under her inquisitive glance. “I… I suppose I am. I have taken the undergraduate exams at Oxford University.”

“You have been sitting your country’s imperial examinations?”

Will looked at his teacup. “I am not sure if it is quite the same thing. It does not count very much with us, unless you plan on becoming a clergyman or a lawyer.”

“Service to the gods and ancestors is worthy, but scholarship for the sake of gaining pure knowledge is worthier still, and the pursuit of the noblest of minds,” Qian said gently.

“I… I thank you, Madam,” Will murmured.

Qian asked a great many more questions on his studies and the system of examinations in England. Temeraire watched Will answer, dissatisfied. As usual, Will was being too modest. For example, he failed to tell Qian how he had come second in his university’s examinations one year, and that he had won some very handsome medals at school. When Qian went on to question him about his family’s health, Temeraire opened his mouth to steer the subject back to Will’s merits.

Qian raised a talon to summon one of her attendants, an elegant dark blue dragon with a silver collar hung with silk ribbons. “Lung Qing Xue is going to show you the rock garden, Xiang,” she said, “It is renowned for its calming effect.”

Temeraire stalked out of the pavilion after Xue, resentful. She was a gentle and elegant dragon, and the rock garden was pleasant enough, but he would rather have stayed with Will, whom none of them treated as he deserved.

He startled when a man stepped out from one of the ornamental caves.

“Gong Su!” Temeraire exclaimed, overjoyed, “Why, I did not know you were here!” He quickly put out a talon to stop Gong Su prostrating himself on the ground before him. “No, there is no call for that. Oh, I am so glad to have found someone I know!”

“The pleasure is all mine. I should be honoured if you will walk a turn with me, Lung Tien Xiang,” Gong Su said, folding his hands into the wide sleeves of his robe. Temeraire regarded it approvingly. It was made of pure silk and splendidly embroidered with a panel showing a heron in flight, and although there were more lines on his face than when they had last met, Gong Su now wore a mandarin’s peacock feather on his hat.

They set off across the park, and Gong Su pointed out features of the gardens and architecture, what had been devised by whom, and even what poetry had been written about each scenic feature. Qian’s summer residence comprised no fewer than ten dragon pavilions, generous apartments for the human inhabitants, a library, vast parklands and gardens, and several artificial lakes with ornamental bridges larger than any Temeraire had seen spanning the Thames in London. They could have gone for the better part of an hour without crossing the same path twice. After a while, Temeraire could not help limping slightly on account of the Indian musket wound, but his mother’s physicians had been very careful about extracting it, so he only huffed when Gong Su inquired after it. “I can barely feel it at all. We had to come here very quickly, and also Will was very ill, so we could not stop to have it taken out.”

He would have told Gong Su more about their adventures, and their time as traders in India, but Gong Su all but cut him short, untypically discourteous, to continue to talk of gardening. Temeraire shut his mouth again, piqued. But when they had reached a deserted path, out of earshot of any other dragon or servant, Gong Su said, switching to English: “I am sorry, Temeraire, but the very walls have ears here.”

“But what is it?” Temeraire whispered, alarmed, “Why is everyone behaving so oddly?”

“I beg you not to be upset,” Gong Su said, “But we – your mother and her court, and Ning before she left us – have been very much outcast. With the situation at Guangzhou, the tide at Peking has turned against all those who ever advocated friendly relations with the British. There are voices that call your noble daughter a thorn planted in our nation’s heart to serve English interests. Some even claim that Prince Lao-Ren-Tse has risen in his country’s government and is now conspiring against his Imperial brother, and that you are but an instrument in this design.”

“Oh, but that is utterly outrageous!” Temeraire cried, “I am not saying the government and especially the East India Company have not been very awful scrubs recently, but parliament had nothing to do with Ning – she decided to go to China herself after we beat Napoleon. I did not make her, and certainly Laurence did not. And he does not even like the current government very much.“

“I know, and I have no reason to suppose any of the rumours are true. But the Emperor cannot be seen to acknowledge any British connections at this time. Pray do not view it as any personal reflection on the young man you have brought with you – but if you want him to be safe, you ought to send him back to England."

“I will never,” Temeraire said, stubbornly, “Will is no spy, and we are not here to do England any favours. We came to tell Ning to stop her folly. Surely for that much, we may travel to Canton?”

“If our gracious Emperor wills it,” Gong Su said, cautiously, “But I must recommend utmost patience, and counsel you not to do anything that should raise false suspicions.”

Temeraire scraped a talon through the neatly raked gravel of the path. “But Gong Su, I do not understand. If people here think bad things about us, why did nobody stop us at the border? Song and her crew only found us because they were looking for that thieving dragon.”

“The legions have been drawn together in the South,” Gong Su said.

“What,” Temeraire said, alarmed, “You mean they are preparing to do battle – already?”

“You must pardon my ignorance, but in these benighted northern parts, we do not have insight into our noble generals’ strategies.” Two small dragons were walking towards them. Gong Su lowered his head and continued, slipping back into Mandarin: “Regard this bridge, which is called the Seven Arch Bridge, and was built to recall the three obediences and four virtues…”

 

\--

 

Their permit to travel to Canton arrived two days later, delivered by Jade dragon, and after yet another day, a group of five legionary heavyweights from the South set down in the central courtyard amid a dazzling blaze of coloured wings and banners. They had been sent to escort them: a guard of honour for Temeraire’s sake, certainly not for him, Will thought with relief. Nobody referred to him as a prince. The Chinese seemed reluctant even to use his Christian name, and had instead settled for parroting the one courtier who spoke fluent English, Gong Su, and address him “Captain”, in an odd cadence, _kap-tan_. Temeraire was inclined to grumble about it, but Will did not mind, quite the contrary.

“I hope you have enjoyed your stay at this humble pavilion,” Qian asked him on the morning of their departure.

“Madam, I have never seen anything so magnificent,” Will said, this being no idle flattery. Qian had received him with the utmost kindness, allowing him free reign of her library and even setting one of her own scholars to instructing him on Chinese dragon husbandry and the history of the Celestial lineage, when he had professed an interest. It had been a most valuable lesson, once Will had overcome his shock at finding the scholar himself a dragon.

“Convey my regards to your honoured father and his wives,” Qian went on, and Will quickly inclined his head to hide his blush, noncommittal. He could hardly protest now: it had been an awkward misunderstanding. Qian had been keenly interested in his family, even going so far as to have the old painting of Will and Horatio brought out to show to her entourage of interested dragons and courtiers. Not only did the Chinese adore small children, but to them, the toddlers’ golden curls were exotic beyond anything, and they had pronounced themselves baffled to see Will’s hair still retained something of that shade. Encouraged by their interest, Will had mentioned that he had a half-sister and niece. Qian had immediately assumed Emily to be his father's daughter by another wife or concubine, asking eagerly how many wives and children Prince Lao-Ren-Tse had. Will had not been able to catch his words back, nor been able to think of a way to correct the assumption that would not have scandalized his hosts. He tried to smile as he bowed again to Qian and instead thanked her for the gift she had made him: a handsome antique scroll of Tang dynasty poetry.

Temeraire, fortunately, did not pay much attention to the conversation and instead paced up and down the courtyard behind them, tense as an arrow about to be shot from a bow, the way he had been almost since their arrival. Will suspected he was worried about Ning at Canton, as well he might be, but he could not see how being short-tempered around their gracious hosts should help them in that mission. Overall, Will felt he rather ought to blush for Temeraire's behaviour.

“Your young companion can travel with my crew,” the head of the legionary dragons suggested when his detachment was making ready to go aloft. But Temeraire, in a further show of foul temper, put his ruff back and flatly refused to entertain the idea.

“No! He is staying with me, where I can see him,” he said, curling his tail around Will.

“It is fine, Temeraire,” Will whispered, mortified. Everyone was staring at them. “You have no harness, and he will fly right behind you.” The Chinese had looked askance at Temeraire’s harness, and from their mutterings, Will had gathered that they viewed it a disgrace for a Celestial to be kept strapped up like a common working-beast. He did not want to give offense, especially to Qian, so he had convinced Temeraire to forego the harness for the rest of their stay in China.

“No, I will not allow it,” Temeraire whispered back, perfectly audible for all around, and then to his favourite courtier: “Gong Su, you must tell Will he needs to stay with me.”

“Alright, alright,” Will sighed, and pulled himself up with some difficulty, his ribs complaining sharply. Upon their arrival at her residence, Qian had summoned a physician to look at his bruised side, and the man had proceeded to prod him with needles, apparently with the honest intention of lessening the pain, but Will, stiff and terrified during the procedure, had felt no benefit whatsoever. Laudanum provided more reliable relief, and he had been glad to find a large bottle of it wrapped up with a store of bandages when he had emptied out the harness’ pouches, before it was folded away. To make matters worse, the silk robe that had been pressed on him in place of his comfortable Nepalese clothes made it very hard to move about and he could not clasp his carabiner-belt around his thighs, having to rely solely on the strap around his waist. After some hesitation, he hooked it onto one of the elegant loops of Temeraire’s collar, another gift of Qian’s. The delicate filigree silver looked likely to snap at so much as a tug, and Will cast a wistful look at the legionary crews all safely strapped onto their dragons’ silk harnesses.

But once aloft, the greater freedom soon repaid him for the sacrifice of safety, and he even asked Temeraire to take him back in his talons so he could get a better view of the countryside below. The scenery was beautiful with its limestone peaks, woods and waterfalls. There were cities and roads, large and built with a mathematical precision that made Will almost certain aerial surveyors must have had a part in the planning. But the most fascinating thing was the multitude of dragons: beasts of all sizes and conformations, from small messengers darting across the sky at impossible speeds to big-boned beasts hauling carts of building material for the refurbishment of a truly immense channel, the Yangtse river, which they crossed on their second day of travel.

That evening, they set down in a large complex of dragon pavilions a short way south of Guiyang, a prefectural capital. Around them, the hills and gorges were rolling out onto wide fertile plains studded with smaller towns. Will had caught a glimpse of the city from above: much larger than Oxford, likely bigger even than Birmingham, with wide roads and many inhabitants moving between the houses like ants.

“May I be taken to see the town?” he asked Gong Su before dinner – reasonably enough, he thought, as the evening was not yet far advanced.

But the official was evasive. “There is nothing of especial interest there, Captain. It is but small and provincial. If you want for entertainment, I can have musicians or a poet or… whatever else will please you sent up.”

“Yes, Gong Su is right,” Temeraire said, “You must stay here, with me. It is safer that way.”

“What is all this cossetting, all of a sudden?” Will asked, resentful. In India, Temeraire had not hesitated to drag him across lively markets and throw him into lakes. He could not account for the sudden change, and thought darkly that the courtier, Gong Su, must have something to do with it.

He got up and left the courtyard to go to the bedroom he had been allocated, ignoring Temeraire’s protest behind him, “but Will, do you not want to read your poetry book, together?”

“No,” Will snapped over his shoulder, “And I don’t need nursemaiding either!” The tantalising glimpses of the city were still fresh on his mind, and the prospect of being kept locked up under Temeraire’s jealous supervision while on the ground was hard to swallow.

Two of the legionary soldiers rose and followed him to take up guard outside his room, all polite bows as he went inside past them, but Will ignored them. He shut the door and sat down to stare at the beautifully paneled walls without really seeing them. His chest ached with every deep resentful breath, but there was nothing to be done about that except to wait for the cracked ribs to knit together again, and dodge any needles. He took the laudanum bottle from his robe, the draped folds loose enough to conceal a multitude of sins, poured some of the bitter liquid into a delicate porcelain cup, and drained it. He held the dark bottle against the fading light of the window – a third gone already, after Min Bahadur had resorted to it to dull him into insensibility, on their flight across enemy country.

Outside the window, a few workers were busy replacing some of the green-glazed roof tiles, climbing about on a bamboo scaffold while two small brown dragons ferried up the material. Their shift was drawing to an end, and Will watched the men shut their toolboxes and gather up their things. They boarded the dragons in groups of three, happily calling out to one another about where to go for supper.

With sudden inspiration, Will walked to the window and opened the fretwork shutters just as the second dragon made ready to jump aloft.

“Wait!” he called out to them in Chinese, “Can you take me along?”

The roofing dragon looked at him startled, but then edged closer when he saw the silver coin in his hand. It did not take much convincing, beside another coin, for one of his passengers to hand Will his cone-shaped hat, woven from a material very much like straw. It tied up with a ribbon under his chin and could be pulled down low enough to hide Will’s tell-tale hair and eyes, at least at a cursory glance.

The flight to the city was short and terminated in an untidy backyard, with tiles, beams and a few half-dismantled windows propped against the walls. The roofers walked away in high spirits, debating at what cook-shop Will’s coin would buy the greatest amount of roast dinner and rice wine, men and dragon talking to one another happily and easily – Will would have been hard-pressed to say who was master. He followed them out into a crowded street. Nobody took notice of him, and he could have sung out with joy: He was in a Chinese city, and he was free.

For a long time, he wandered aimlessly, just looking at things. There were alleys lit by paper lanterns, a large gilded temple that resembled Temeraire's pavilion back at Castelton, and many old houses with magnificently carved fronts, their glazed roofs petering out into scowling phoenixes and dragon heads. And everywhere, there were dragons – dragons working, dragons playing, dragons making purchases, dragons reading and dragons politicking or telling jokes. Nobody gave them a second glance or minded them mingling freely with the human inhabitants. Even small children ran up to them without being snatched back by their nurses.

After the first fit of giddying fascination, Will could not help feeling humbled. He had more than once cursed his father’s political activism, not seeing at all why Admiral Laurence always had to put himself forward with the most radical notions concerning dragon rights instead of serving quietly in the Lords like, for instance, his brother Lord Allendale. Certainly none of Will’s cousins had ever been ridiculed for being the son of the lunatic who wanted to have Piccadilly Circus widened so his dragon might land there.

But walking the streets of Guiyang, he was forced to acknowledge that his father’s vision was not some romantic fantasy. It stood in front of his eyes now, solid and palpable, the difference not merely a matter of size or logistics. Everything around him spoke of an entirely different place accorded to dragons in society, a natural respect that had no need for exemption rules or side alleys set aside for dragons so they would not startle the cart-horses or cause ladies to faint. The very notion of hidden coverts or, even worse, breeding grounds suddenly seemed absurd, and Will could not banish the thought that if any of his father’s notions had sounded fanciful back in England, it was only because conditions there were still a far cry from what he could observe around him.

Deep in thought, he had soon lost the direction of the main street and turned around a few corners to no avail, the streets and backyards growing increasingly shabby, but no less crowded. His fine silk robe now attracted stares. He heard the click of counters on boards and the low din of human and dragon voices issuing from a large house with open colonnades. In the open yard, several dragons and men sat opposite one another at low tables, engaged in some form of tactical game that consisted of moving black and white counters on a grid, with stacks of wagered coins on the floor beside them. Noticing Will out in the street, one of the players raised a hand, beckoning him to join them. But his foreign features would hardly have gone unnoticed closeted at a table, so Will quickly looked away and walked on, making a mental note to ask their hosts about the game, which he supposed Temeraire might be equally keen to learn.

The streets in this part were scarcely lit at all, but a single red lampion glowed at the end of the row like a beacon, drawing him towards it. A crumbling archway led into a damp and neglected courtyard, the ground churned by dragon claws, and at the other end there was a large gate with a smaller inset door for humans in what seemed to be the common mode. It was painted with faded characters, too scratched to be easily legible. Will still stood squinting at them in the sparse light when he heard heavy steps behind him and a large lean dragon shuffled into the dark courtyard, unaccompanied. He paid no attention to Will, who had to scramble out of the way not to be stepped on or squashed, and thumped his spiked head against the gate, adding fresh furrows to the ones that already marred the painted letters. The small door was opened a few inches and a man peered outside. He spoke to the dragon in low whispers and pointed at Will. The dragon snapped a short and impatient answer, and, when the man looked doubtful, all but snatched Will up into his claw.

Will froze, the beast’s breath hot in his neck. The talons locked around his chest were sharp and not particularly clean, and grasped tighter when he tried to squirm. However, the man at the door finally nodded, satisfied, and shortly after, the large gate was opened. The dragon padded inside without hesitation, carrying Will along like a piece of baggage.

The inside of the establishment was mostly dark, with a few islands of light from the red lampions that seemed to float freely under the high ceiling, suspended by delicate silk strings. Smoke and a pervasive sweet smell hung in the air, not at all unpleasant. The dragon unceremoniously dropped Will to the floor and then slumped down in a corner, thumping his tail impatiently. A group of servants hurried up to him with a board, on which he hastily and carelessly scratched a few marks with a claw. The men took it away and returned with a large tray, and with great ceremony, a pipe was lit. The dragon accepted it with a look of great satisfaction and settled himself on his side, his tense wing-joints stretching languidly.

Will rubbed his eyes, streaming in the dry smoke. As his vision gradually adjusted, he could see the huddled shapes of men and dragons sprawled on the floor, in groups or alone. There was a sparse murmur of conversation, the few words Will could understand mostly incoherent. One man laughed and hummed softly and another sobbed in a corner for no apparent reason whatsoever, but mostly, the guests were reclining silently with their pipes, the expressions on their faces rapturous and tranced. Will knew he should get up, perhaps ask one of the servants for the way back to the main street and take his leave, but he suddenly found himself quite unable to move. A small voice whispered in his ear that there could be no harm in staying a little longer in this comforting place. Just breathing its air seemed to lighten all burdens, his aching chest reduced to a trifle, and if his temples throbbed and his throat ached from the smoke, he did not mind it at all.

One of the servants approached him, bowed and held out his hand. Will looked at the man puzzled for a moment, then he reached inside the folds of the silk robe. But even before he pulled it out, he knew the small pouch with the silver coins was empty except for one last coin, and that one needed for his ride back to the pavilion. Will fought with himself a moment, but then he shook his head. “I… I am sorry, I cannot pay.”

The servant smiled at him and bowed again. “You will come back tomorrow,” he said, gently, a statement more than a question.

Will nodded hastily. “I will… try” he said, and meant it, suddenly sorry beyond anything that he could not stay in the hidden, enticing place. But looking down at his hands, callused from gripping onto a harness, he suddenly thought of Temeraire, waiting for him, worried perhaps with the hour so late, and with an effort turned around to open the door.

The warm evening air now seemed harsh on his face, the faint sulphurous smell of dragon-waste more biting. Will continued for a while still without sense of direction, one side of him desperately wanting to return to the welcoming den, and another longing to be back with Temeraire, the latter impulse growing more urgent with every step he took away from the door and the sweet fumes. He now regretted shouting at him.

He finally chanced on a road with familiar signs and recognized a roofed market he had passed earlier. Mutton chops, roast chicken, great piles of rice noodles and even steamed snails were sold by the light of a myriad lanterns. The streets seemed to have grown even busier at night, thronged with workers hungry and at liberty. Will wandered between the stalls with their steaming cauldrons and griddles when a snatch of conversation from one of the diners suddenly caught his interest, the name _Guangzhou_ , Canton, quite clear.

“To be brought to Guangzhou? Those felons over there? Whatever for?”

“As an example to the rest of the _jalan_ , of course,” a dragon said, “By the wisdom of our gracious Emperor and his advisors.”

“Big effort if you ask me. Why not hang them here?”

“Hang them? Hanging would be too kind for their lot…”

Will would have liked to listen for longer, but he did not dare linger. There seemed to be a commotion on the far side of the market, people and dragons shouting and jeering. He passed between two official-looking buildings and stopped dead when he got a full view of the crowded square that lay beyond: On a stone pedestal fenced with wrought-iron cables, lit by blazing torches and guarded by two Emerald dragons in war harness, was the miserable hunched form of a red dragon.

Will worked his way through the crowd, cautiously shouldering past people and dragons. He had never thought himself a tall man back in England, but seemed to have half a head in height on most of the Chinese, so he could soon see clearly, clearer than he might have wished, any final doubts gone when he spotted the young rider next to her beast – the same one who had attacked them at the river and broken his brother’s chronometer.

The heavy board was still locked around her neck and her shirt had been torn to shreds on her back, blood-soaked from cane lashes. The dragon was an even more miserable sight: with bloodshot eyes and trembling violently, he looked completely broken although he showed no outward signs of any violence. The thief stood beside him, holding herself up with a steely effort of will. From time to time, she tried to lean across to the dragon and whisper a comforting word, but every time she made the attempt, one of the guards leapt up to strike her again, and the audience whistled and threw rotten food and street-waste. Signs had been hung around both their necks, and on them, in letters large enough for even Will to read from the cover of the crowd:

_“He who sells opium shall receive the death penalty_   
_And he who smokes it also the death penalty_   
_And he who dishonours his jalan shall bear shame worse than death,_   
_and all his ancestor’s shrines shall be destroyed.”_

Will's mouth was paper-dry. He had not made the connection before, with the sweet scent clouding his mind, but suddenly, the store house at Bombay was vivid before his eyes again, the shelves stacked high, awaiting the journey east.

He heard Temeraire’s voice calling his name, anxious and quivering, before he could see him. Temeraire’s hide was almost invisible against the night sky and in a prefectural capital, even large dragons passing overhead seemed too common a sight for people to take special notice. But when the cry erupted into a roar – a throttled thundercrack rippling away over the roofs and sending tiles crashing into the streets – people and dragons looked up, and then rushed to clear him a space. Temeraire descended, and a circle quickly widened around him – not from people running away, but from men and dragons bowing deeply in respect, until Will was almost the only one in the whole square still standing upright, besides a few men too drunk or arthritic to follow suit.

“I am here, Temeraire!” he shouted, and urgently picked his way across the square. He muttered apologies for stepping on people’s hems and sleeves, too shaken to mind that he was speaking English and most likely, nobody understood a word of it.

Temeraire whipped his head around and hissed at him, baring long, serrated teeth. “Will! You do need nursemaiding, and badly so! Whatever made you run off like this?”

Will involuntarily made a step back. He could ignore the many hundreds looking at them now, but he had never heard Temeraire speak to him so, with raw anger, and despite the warm night air, a chill crept across his arms.

Temeraire thrust out his forearm without another word, jerking his head to indicate Will should come aboard, but made no move to hand him up.

The guard dragons surrounding the platform had bent their heads low at the sound of the Divine Wind and their captive, too, had fallen to her knees. Only the Scarlet Flower dragon remained cowering in much the same position, trembling.

“So you are here, too?” Temeraire asked him, “You nasty highway robber, I thought they-“

He broke off when he read the sign. “Oh,” he huffed, “So what else have you done?”

The dragon did not say anything, but one of the guards lifted her head. Peering over Temeraire’s shoulder, Will could not be entirely certain, as most of the green regimental heavyweights looked very much alike, but he thought he recognized Song, and Captain Lanfen standing next to her, with her head bent low but a hand on her sword-hilt.

“Lung Tien Xiang, please do not concern yourself with these criminals,” Song said, “We are taking them to Canton where they are to be tried and hear their sentence. We are sorry fate should have been so cruel as to make you cross paths with them again.”

“But I do not understand,” Temeraire said. Before anyone could protest, he had snatched the dragon’s companion from the platform, holding her up to his eyes to peer at her more closely. “So you were soldiers, both of you?”

The robber did not make any sound, limp as a ragdoll. The Shao-lung, noticing his companion in another dragon’s claws despite whatever mists were clouding his mind, roused and snapped his jaws at Temeraire. Song growled and lifted a talon to bat him across the face, but froze mid-swing when Temeraire hissed again.

“Stop it! If they are being taken to Canton, they may travel with me, as I am going that way,” Temeraire said, “I would like them to answer to me too, as they have tried to steal from us and hurt my captain. I can keep a perfectly good watch on them, and I am big enough that he may sit on my back, because he does not look like he can fly much anymore.”

Song and the other guards stared at him in disbelief.

“August One, you cannot mean to burden yourself with a pair of convicted felons,” Captain Lanfen finally said into the resounding silence, bowing, “Your magnanimity does not know the crimes these wretches have committed.”

“But what crimes?” Temeraire asked. “Surely nobody deserves to be beaten so for trying to steal a few coins and a chronometer – although it was a very handsome chronometer, which Laurence bought before he even had me, so it is a great shame.”

Lanfen blinked at him a moment. Then she reeled off, unmoved: “Violating the opium ban and falling prey to its evil effects, contributing to the corruption of the system of draconic salaries and stipends, thieving off their fellows and attacking villages to satisfy their base desires, and bringing the imperial army into grave disrepute. It is a cancer that must be stamped out with the greatest resolution.”

“Very well,” Temeraire said, “I will take them to Canton and they may be tried, but I won’t let you beat up a dragon and his captain like you are doing here, if it is for opium, because that cannot be their blame alone, but the East India Company’s, also.” He thrust the red dragon’s companion up to his shoulders without concerns for the heavy board around her neck, which restricted her movement enough for her to almost tumble backwards and fall, until she managed to grasp a silver twine of his collar and steady herself. She quickly climbed past Will without meeting his eyes – instead, her gaze was fixed on her dragon, desperate. The Shao-lung was being poked and prodded to his feet by the guard dragons and a few of their soldiers armed with pikes.

“He should climb up on my back now,” Temeraire said, watching him stagger.

“Temeraire, please,” Will whispered to him in English. The eyes of all the dragons and townspeople were still fixed upon them, some incredulous, others shocked, and none of them kind – it was plain enough they were offending. “I cannot think it wise-”

“No, but I cannot think it wise to make him injure himself when it is perfectly plain he cannot fly,” Temeraire growled back, his voice and stiffened ruff leaving no doubt as to his resolve.

Will pressed his lips together and turned to the dragon’s companion. “Madam, do you suppose your beast can climb on Temeraire’s back and keep himself balanced there for a short flight?”

“You do us no kindness, Sir,” she murmured.

“No,” he said, exasperated. “No, I can quite see that, but Temeraire has taken it into his head to take pity on your beast. If it helps, you may rest assured I have no wish to interfere with any punishment you have earned. But will your honour be served by seeing your dragon suffer?”

She stared at him a moment with her good eye, the other one still bruised and swollen shut. Then she reached out a hand towards the shivering and unsteady dragon to call out gentle encouragement, until the Shao-lung had finally scrambled off the platform onto Temeraire’s back, where he slumped down panting as if he had just scaled a mountain. He had once been a large beast, but had clearly not been fed well for months, ribs and backbone jutting from his dulled hide. Will could not help being glad for it, seeing as Temeraire would need to lift him.

Temeraire carefully rose to his feet and made an experimental hop, and the red dragon dug his claws into his sides to stop himself falling off again, drawing a drop of dark blood. Will cried out in alarm, but Temeraire did not flinch or even put his head around, and without a moment’s hesitation jumped aloft. He climbed slowly, with laborious wing-strokes. At a signal from Lanfen, both the guard dragons went up close behind them, with all the town staring up at them go.

When the square had fallen away, the blazing torches of the pillory reduced to a handful of innocent fireflies, Will suddenly became aware of a movement behind him. The thief, who had settled herself astride the crest of Temeraire’s spine, slowly shuffled across to his left wing-joint, brought her right leg over to sit side-saddle fashion, and then-

“What in the name of Christ…!”

She let go. Will flung himself around and, catching her under both shoulders, hauled her back, the pillory board painfully striking his own head. The maneuver threw them both backward against Temeraire’s other wing, which was fortunately arching upwards at that moment. The Shao-lung’s rider managed to hook an arm around the wing-base, but Will grasped for purchase and could gain none on Temeraire’s glossy black hide, slipping backwards to the place where Temeraire’s wing-membranes stopped and a gaping void began. The thief shouted a quick command. Her dragon who had clung on like a dead weight suddenly cracked open an eye and swung a talon forwards, breaking Will’s slide. Will felt a hand on his arm and grasped it tight with both hands, unthinking. The red dragon’s companion pulled him up and then unceremoniously pushed him forward past Temeraire shoulders, until he had put a trembling hand on the silver collar.

The maneuver had jarred the red dragon about, causing him to sluggishly fan out a wing to steady himself, and Temeraire swung his head around displeased. “What is going on?” he asked.

Will, pale and too shaken to say anything, did not reply.

“Bring in your wing, or you may fly for yourself!” Temeraire snapped at the red dragon. “Will, this is no good. I shall have my harness back on tomorrow.”

“It is fine… just keep flying,” Will managed, trying to master his racing heart and stuttering breaths. The lights of the pavilions were close now. He turned around to glare at the thief, who once again sat stiff and unmoving, her dragon’s yellow eyes fixed on her.

“Can’t you mind your feet,” he hissed, anger proving useful to drown out the echo of the shock, “This is no time to go climbing about! You would have had both our necks broken, and with a little bad luck Temeraire’s and your own dragon’s too!”

She did not flinch. “If you had let me do as I chose, I should have had only my neck broken and not endangered yours. You could have said you pushed me.”

He stared at her in disbelief. Her hands were trembling as much as his, but her voice was steady when she continued: “You must not help us, or else they will convict you too. Lin Zexu knows no mercy.”

“W-what?” he stammered. “No! No… how dare you say such a thing. As if I would make myself a murderer!”

“They would praise you for it. And it is not as though I am not deserving,” she said, and lowered her eyes. “I could not stop him.”

“I am afraid I cannot follow you,” Will said.

“The English poison,” she said, monotone, “The agents and _cohong_ in Canton leave it out for the dragons. They put it into their food and into carcasses left lying about and when the dragons go looking for more, they show them the way to the dens. And Shun‘s kind is susceptible. They eat everything they can find, without thinking. I did keep a watch!” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice, “But he had been wounded, and I thought it could do no harm to let him have a little relief when he liked... until I could not stop it, and they found out. They wanted to put him to death. So we ran.”

“I see,” Will said, warily. He was not sure why she should feel obliged to confess her sins to him of all people. “And how many of your fellows at Canton have succumbed so?”

She hesitated a moment. Then she said: “Of the Shao-lung, a third at least. Of the Emeralds, not so many. But it is hard to be certain. Some captains try to hide it, and if they are found out, they are killed too. But that is better than watching your dragon be punished, and being left alive.” She stared past him.

“You made it very far, if you came from the south.”

“Yes. There are fewer regiments up north. We soon should have reached the border. But the opium is very hard to get, and expensive in the North, so we had to… find means.”

“You kept feeding him opium?” Will asked, aghast.

She nodded, looking down at her dirty and torn fingernails. “If he does not have it, Shun is ill, like now.”

“Lord have mercy on us,” Will muttered, and then nodded to the red dragon. “Shun? Is that his name?”

She nodded. The dragon still stared dully, but twitched an ear at the sound of his name.

“And yours?”

“Qiu Ji.”

He nodded. “Mine is-“

“I know who you are,” she said, cutting him off, and then baffled him by standing up and walking the short distance to her beast across Temeraire’s spine, upright and with a skylarking ease that shattered Will’s last hopes of ascribing her earlier misstep to an accident. She sat down again by the red dragon’s head and stroked his muzzle. “Everyone in our _jalan_ had heard of Lung Tien Xiang, and knew he is in league with the British poisoners.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Temeraire and Little Will cross the Himalayas into China. Temeraire is disappointed that nobody treats Will as royalty, while Will is silently relieved. Their first encounter with a Chinese dragon consists of a highway robbery from which an imperial army dragon, Song, and his companion, Lanfen, rescue them. Temeraire takes pity on the robbers, an ex-legionary dragon called Shun and his disgraced captain, who have been on the run after Shun was discovered to be addicted to opium, a crime punishable by death. Temeraire insists on taking the prisoners to Canton himself to ensure they receive a fair trial. Gong Su joins them and warns Temeraire about rumours that he and Will are conspiring with the East India Company fomenting unrest in Canton._

The fires in the dining hall of the Guiyang pavilion had gone cold when they returned, platters and cauldrons cleared from the tables.

“I have already eaten,” Temeraire said and nodded at the thief and her dragon who were being led away by Song, “but what about them?”

Will shrugged his shoulders. “He doesn’t look hungry to me.”

“You are being very callous, Will,” Temeraire said indignantly, “Of course he is hungry! He is all skin and bones!”

“No business of ours,” Will sighed. He was tired and his ribs hurt all the worse after restraining the thief. “I am sure Song and Lanfen will take care of it.”

“I can see how much care they have taken so far,” Temeraire growled, “I daresay it is their fault he is so weak! I will see Gong Su about it.” And he was gone in a flurry of short, angry wing-strokes.

Will dragged himself back up the stairs to his room and was surprised to find a tray of food waiting for him, with a servant hovering next to it. He picked at the plates unenthusiastically, still hopeless with the pair of sticks intended for cutlery, while a serving of fruit sherbet melted to a sad puddle in its porcelain dish. His thoughts kept straying to the laudanum bottle, but he could hardly bring it out in front of the servant who might recognize it as a banned good – and then another thought crossed his mind, and his stomach closed.

“Is the food not to your liking, _kap-tan_?” the servant asked. He had been watching Will’s attempts with poorly concealed dismay, flinching every time Will dropped something halfway to his mouth. Seeing him pause, the man jumped forward with quick initiative and attempted to lift away the tray.

“No, leave it,” Will protested, “I am not done.”

The luckless servant returned to his post next to the door. “May I bring you something else?” he asked, almost pleadingly.

Will stared at the half-empty plates. “No. Do you mind calling on Gong Su, to see if he is free to speak to me?”

The servant nodded, bowed again and left, visibly relieved.

Gong Su appeared a short while later. He raised an eyebrow at the ruin of the meal and Will’s clothes, and pointed at the chopsticks. “Do you wish for instruction on how to use them?” he said, without irony.

Will shook his head. “No – that is, maybe later. Gong Su, do you know who has been put in charge of the prisoners’ rations?”

The mandarin shook his head. “Lung Tien Xiang asked me the same question, but I don’t think any such arrangements have been made. You may ask the officer in charge of their transportation to Canton, whom I believe to be Commander Song, but-“

Will nodded, impatiently. “Good. If no provision has been made, may I send my dinner to them? To the dragon, I mean? I’ve been given far too much, and surely it would only be thrown to the pigs otherwise.”

Gong Su’s frown deepened. “Your charity is commendable, Captain, and I am sure your honoured father would approve. But I must warn you there is little that can be done for them. The laws are strict and were well known to them. They acted in the full knowledge of the consequences – or at least the beast’s handler did so.”

“I know,” Will said, a little annoyed at being so transparent‚ “and I am not trying to be charitable. Only Temeraire has taken up this notion of ferrying the dragon about. It has already resulted in an injury. If the beast‘s general state can be improved, he can fly for himself. I could not care less what their fate will be once we reach Guangzhou.”

“And how do you propose to see him improve?” Gong Su asked, skeptically.

Will hesitated. He barely knew Gong Su, but Temeraire regarded him highly and the man knew his father – as trustworthy an ally as he was likely to gain. He brought out the laudanum bottle. “His captain said he was hale as long as she kept him dosed on opium. I was hoping to add some of this to his food... a whole cupful or two to begin with, and then stretch it out, until a calming effect can be achieved at a lower dose.”

Gong Su took it from his hands, unstopped it, and put a drop on a finger to taste, with a routine air as if he were savouring a new kind of vinegar. “It is very bitter,” he remarked. “The taste will be hard to mask.”

“I know,” Will said, “But if what his companion said is true, he will have become accustomed to it. The traders leave it out as bait.” Equally likely, Will thought, the dragon would spit it out and he would travel on in pain for no good reason at all. But the thought of Temeraire’s blood on the red dragon’s claws and the way the big beast had almost sent him floundering was unbearable – the attempt had to be made.

Gong Su tucked the bottle away in the folds of his robe. “I will try to devise something. Perhaps some... other ingredients with a calming effect might be found, and strong spices to improve the taste.”

“Whatever you see fit,” Will said, greatly relieved.

“But Captain,” Gong Su continued, “You need to leave this in my hands entirely, and I must warn you to stay away from the prisoners as much as you can. The evil rumours abound, and it will do you no good to be seen fraternising with the enemies of the land.”

“But I am not fraternising at all!” Temeraire protested when Will called on him to check he was settled in one of the pavilions and reiterated Gong Su’s warning. “When we reach Guangzhou, they will realize we are not working for the Company, and until then, people may talk all they want. I will carry Shun as long as he needs it, and no, Song and Lanfen may _not_ have his captain, because they will try to hurt her again, and I will not stand for it – I will not stand for it at all."

“Temeraire, they were thieves and robbers and have broken a great many laws,” Will reminded him, "Above all, the ban on opium-smoking."

“I know,” Temeraire said, doggedly, “but when you were so ill, Mr Bahadur let you have some opium, and it made you better, which was a great relief. Now Shun looks so very miserable, and if opium makes him better, I cannot blame his captain for stealing if it is the only way they could get it. And anyway, no Chinese dragon would develop a taste for opium if the Company did not put it in their way. They ought to punish the Company for it, not their own dragons!”

“You argued quite the opposite way around, in India,” Will sighed, “And before you find excuses for their crimes, consider what father always says: that any dragon is in possession of a free will and entitled to be treated as such, with all rights and duties. _Duties_ , Temeraire. No dragon or human is above the law.”

“Yes,” Temeraire said, but he continued, stubbornly: “But the law is wrong. Neither dragons nor people could come in the way of the opium if we did not put it there… Oh, Will, I wish we had never sold any of it.” A shiver ran across his hide as if he resented the very memory of the chests stowed in his belly-netting. “But I am sure once Ning learns that this is the Company’s doing, she will stop helping them. She cannot know all this, and still support them.”

Will pushed himself to his feet. His head was beginning to hurt, too, and he sorely regretted letting Gong Su have the bottle. “Temeraire, I am too tired for this sort of discussion. I will try to sleep.”

 

\--

 

The prisoners were marched out to them the next morning. Perhaps out of respect for Temeraire, they had let Qiu Ji wash and change into cleaner clothes. Temeraire growled when he saw the cangue still locked around her neck, the skin raw where it grated.

“You may take that board off her,” he said to Song, “She almost fell yesterday. We will vouch for her good behaviour.”

“Will we?” Will muttered, but Temeraire stiffened his ruff, and he fell silent.

The operation consumed another half-hour because Captain Lanfen insisted on having the prisoner’s hands and feet fettered instead, against the good behaviour of her dragon. She handed Will the end of the chain, with a pointed stare that made it plain he was under observation, and an even darker frown at Temeraire’s harness.

Qiu Ji had torn up her old shirt and fashioned a knotted rope to sling around her waist, similar to the lengths of silk cloth the other Chinese aviators wore to latch onto their beasts' harnesses. She blinked at Will when he offered her a spare carabiner-belt, and instead passed the end of her makeshift rope through one of the harness rings to tie a knot faster than Will's eyes could follow.

“Does it not hurt him?” she asked quietly, nodding at the wire-reinforced straps of the British harness.

Temeraire put his head around. “No,” he said, “Not at all, it was made to my measure and I am well used to it. But how does this work?” He nearly doubled back on himself to inspect her knot.

She tugged on one end of it to show how fast it held, whereas a pull on another sling unfurled it in an instant.

“Oh, that is clever! Will, have you seen?” Temeraire exclaimed.

Will had not, as his attention was entirely absorbed by Shun climbing to his place on Temeraire’s back.

Gong Su had only nodded at him briefly, across the courtyard; there had been no chance to speak in private. However, Will thought he noticed a difference in the way the red beast clambered on, sluggish but in better control of his limbs and talons. The violent trembling had stopped. Qiu Ji’s reaction was confirmation enough, her eyes widening when she saw it, and when she called out his name, the dragon opened his eyes and answered her. She pressed a hand to her mouth as if to stifle a sob, and edged as close to him as Lanfen's chain would permit.

Once they were aloft and Song and her crew had gone a little way ahead, Will threw her the end of the chain. “There. Keep your dragon calm. But watch out, I won’t catch you a second time.”

Temeraire huffed in satisfaction, which almost made Will want to snatch the chain back. Qiu Ji blinked at him for a moment, then she quickly nodded and clambered across to Shun, laboriously, the iron cuffs precluding another show of the mad wing-walking.

They did not speak much during the seven days’ flight to Guangzhou. Temeraire tried to speak to Qiu Ji, and even Will made one or two attempts when their escort was out of earshot and the silence grew overburdening. But whatever door the mad rush of her attempted leap off Temeraire’s back had opened at Guiyang remained firmly shut now. She gave evasive and monosyllabic answers, even to simple questions like the names of towns or rivers passing by underneath, and Will soon abandoned any hope of civil conversation.

Shun was no talker either. He at least did not seem so deeply uncomfortable, only increasingly bewildered to be carried about as his senses cleared and Qiu Ji began, whispering, to explain their situation to him. He gave an angry roar once and jumped off Temeraire's back, flinging them all sideways in their straps. But two of the guard dragons and one of Temeraire’s escort pounced on him instantly to bear him down with a tremendous splash in the middle of a paddy field. He flew on his own thereafter, flanked by the guards, and despite Qiu Ji’s pleading, she was not permitted to ride on his back.

She sat with Shun in the evenings, however, shackled and under Temeraire’s watch with her chain locked onto Temeraire’s collar, the only viable compromise because Temeraire still roundly refused to hand her back to Song. Will watched them from the corner of his eye during their reading hour, and found himself distracted enough that Temeraire thumped his tail impatiently.

“No, Will, that character means _cao_ , not _xiao_! It doesn’t make sense otherwise, and they look entirely different! Whyever are you so slow today?”

“Begging your pardon,” Will muttered, “I will start again from the top.”

He blundered through the poem another time, fully conscious he was not doing the beautiful images justice. But he could not help it. He had always preferred factual texts, infinitely happier to figure out how things worked than how he felt about them. And a few paces away, Qiu Ji was pressing her meagre dinner ration on Shun, a fragile and fading frame next to the beast who seemed to recover a little of his strength and fierceness by the day.

Will had avoided the communal dinner, but as usual, a servant had brought out a tray. When Temeraire had tired of his uninspired rendition of Tang poetry and tucked his head under a wing to sleep, Will forced himself to eat. A fine spray of summer rain hung in the air, painting halos around the lanterns swinging from the pavilion’s curved roof. But the courtyard lay deserted.

Will took another look at the lacquered tray, full with all the things he had found too dubious or downright disgusting to attempt – small pickled tentacles, shrunken blackened eggs, a bowl of soup floating with translucent gelatinous cubes - and then picked it up to walk across to Shun.

The Shao-lung lay sprawled across the pavilion steps, his rugged red scales glistening wet. One of his eyes slid open when Will approached. The dragon's expression had nothing of the greedy rage of their first encounter, nor the dull opium fog. Not fear either. Curiosity, perhaps. His breaths went evenly now, different from the agonized rasping they had endured for the first few days when the effects of Gong Su’s concoctions had worn off towards the evenings. Qiu Ji was curled up tightly against her dragon’s side, asleep, and Shun had half-unfurled a wing to shelter her from the rain.

“May I… come in?” Will ventured. There was nothing but thin air and the dragon’s gaze between them, but he felt at a threshold, and could hardly knock.

Qiu Ji awoke with a start. In an instant, she had scrambled backwards and brought her hands up in front of her face, fists closed tight, the chains rattling.

“Shh,” Will whispered, “Don’t wake Temeraire, please. I don’t mean you any harm. I’ve only brought you something to eat. And I mean to ask you some questions, if you are not too tired.” He put the tray down and edged it into the shelter of Shun’s wing where the ground was still dry, across that invisible line.

There was a hungry gleam in her eyes, but the next moment, she had regained her composure and drawn her gaze away from it. “No. If you think you can buy us, you are mistaken,” she said.

Will had not expected gratitude, but he had not been prepared to be accused, either. “Come now,” he said, sharper than intended, “I assure you the East India Company wants me just as dead as your country desires you to be. The choice to starve yourself and let your dragon suffer by watching you at it is of course entirely at your discretion, but I will not give you the satisfaction of standing idly by.”

He wanted to touch his hat and turn away, but since he had not worn one since Bombay, it became an awkward gesture of brushing his damp hair – grown too long – behind his ear before he hastily dropped his hand.

“But… why else have you brought all the best delicacies?” she asked, confused.

“Delicacies?” he echoed, turning again to look at the ghastly dishes.

She nodded and pointed at the tray, bafflement and suspicion warring on her face.

“We may eat,” Shun said in his deep voice, startling Will – the dragon had not spoken five words together in all their days aloft. “We may trust him.” And, as if exhausted by this long speech, he thumped his massive head back onto his paws and shut his eyes.

Qiu Ji threw him a skeptical glance. But she gingerly reached for the chopsticks and picked up one of the small fried octopuses.

“We may ask him to step out of the rain,” Shun growled without opening his eyes, “Where are our manners?”

Qiu Ji flushed a little, but she duly edged back and jerked her chin to a free spot of dry ground under the shelter of Shun’s wing.

“Thank you, very kind,” Will said.

They sat in stony silence while she ate, quickly and neatly, the clanging of the chains the only sound. She sat tense with her shoulders hunched forwards, and Will was suddenly glad of Shun’s presence, ridiculous as it was to regard a massive Chinese war-dragon in light of chaperone.

“Commander Song tells me we will reach Guangzhou tomorrow,” he finally said, when she had emptied the last bowl, “I would be grateful if you could tell me how things stand there.”

She stared at the tray. “We cannot tell you anything of the legions’ disposition. We know nothing. We have been parted from them for too long. If I have spoken before – swayed by unusual circumstances – and left a different impression, I beg you to disregard it as idle chatter.”

“No, of course you cannot,” Will said, “But I am not asking for military intelligence, God knows I could ill use it. But anything – any inkling as to what I am to expect. Qiu Ji, you must know something, rumours at least – of Lung Tien Ning?”

She flinched at the sound of the name, but only stared down at her shackled wrists and shook her head.

“Listen,” Will sighed, and could not help growing a little exasperated, “We have not come to offer aid or comfort to the East India Company. I cannot speak with confidence on behalf of my government. But we – that is, Temeraire – Lung Tien Xiang, I mean – he has come here in the role of a concerned father looking for his daughter. If, by your Emperor’s grace, we might be given a chance to explain our nation’s good intentions and perhaps negotiate the opening of another port-“

“The opening of another port?” she interrupted him, high colour rising to her cheeks. “So this is the impudence of Englishmen! Why should anyone open ports to your lying nation of treacherous dogs? We opened Guangzhou and allowed you to purchase our silk and tea and porcelain, and in return, you have grown ever more skilful at poisoning our country and our dragons! Shun and I have fallen low and you may think us complicit, but I assure you we will gladly bow to the executioner’s sword before making ourselves an instrument in your treachery. We could have joined the Army of Cold Flame, but we did not, and would choose so again.“ Her voice sounded a little choked. She broke off, threw a quick glance to Shun, and then stared at her hands again.

“I cannot deny that some of the conduct of the East India Company has been utterly outrageous,” Will said, slowly. “And though I am new to your country and cannot therefore offer any comment on the situation here, I will freely admit to having seen their guilt with my own eyes, in India. But the Company is not the only voice in my country. I had hoped that to you at least, your dragon’s improved state would have… provided evidence of our good intentions.”

“You wish us to thank the poisoners for delivering a cure?” she retorted, “Is it the way in England, then, to bow to the man who has set your house on fire if only he hands you a bucket of sand?”

Indignantly, Will rose and took possession the tray. “I see we cannot come to an understanding. I am sorry to have taken up so much of your time, Madam. Good night.”

He had half-crossed the yard when he heard quick steps behind him and turned, vaguely hoping Qiu Ji might have changed her mind. But to his shock, it was Captain Lanfen.

“Pray allow me, _kap-tan_ ,” she said and took the tray from his hands, a cold gleam in her eyes, “The kitchens are a different way... I hope the traitor has given you all the answers you require?”

“No,” he said. “None at all. Quite a credit to your Corps.”

She gave a harsh burst of laughter and glanced at the empty dishes. “Don't mock me. I know your methods,” she murmured, “My own sister’s daughter… the shame of it! Oh, I swear you will answer for it.”

She left him and walked away with long mannish strides, her red-tasseled sword slung at her hip. Will stared after her across the rainy yard.

Could she mean it so – could Qiu Ji be her own niece? The very thought seemed monstrous, when he had witnessed her merciless, even brutal treatment of the prisoner, and yet he could not deny a certain chilling logic. If indeed they were related, what better way to test Lanfen’s loyalties than to send her after the offenders? What alternative did Lanfen have, but to be cruel, if she wished to guard herself and her own dragon from suspicion?

He suddenly understood the visceral hate in the older captain’s eyes, and wondered why he had not seen it there before, behind the thin façade of deference to Temeraire.

Will turned away from the dormitories and walked back to the pavilion to sit down with Temeraire, drawing his knees up to his chest and bracing his back against the sleeping dragon’s side. He listened to the deep breaths and waited for the peace they usually brought. But none came.

If only he had not been so self-absorbed, so preoccupied with childish sulking, back at Dover. If only he had listened to Hammond and taken along a diplomat. Now, he was alone in shark-infested waters, utterly unprepared, with nobody to trust, least of all, he was sorry to admit, his own countrymen.

 

\--

 

Guangzhou with its million souls sprawled at the banks of the Pearl River, ia flood of houses, alleys, watchtowers and markets that had long outgrown the old battlements of the city wall. The foreign factories gleamed marble-white at the waterfront, cheerful flags on tall poles proclaiming the nationality of the occupants: British, French, American, Dutch, Danish, and a few others which Temeraire could not immediately name. The river itself was crowded with boats and rafts and a few brightly painted junks. However, a certain languor seemed to have taken hold of the docks. The quays lay deserted and most of the sampan boats bobbed idly at anchor. In the fenced courts outside the factories, the dock hands sat playing at dice, and there was not a Western ship in sight, not a single East Indiaman or tea clipper.

“Will,” Temeraire asked, putting his head around “Where are all the trading ships?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, his voice oddly flat. “An unfavourable tide perhaps, or maybe the season has ended.”

Now that was an entirely ridiculous suggestion, as Temeraire was sure Will knew. The trading season ought to be in full swing. They had seen scores of ships in India, many of which had been bound for China.

Their arrival had been expected and they were met by a detachment of imperial banner dragons who guided them to a paved square in front of a stepped watchtower crowning the city wall. A small green dragon with an impressive collar made of several interlocking rows of pearls greeted them.

“We welcome you to the city of Guangzhou, Lung Tien Xiang,” she said, flattening herself to the ground respectfully, “My name is Lung Li Zhao, deputy to the honoured High Commissioner. We hope your journey here has not been too arduous.”

Temeraire nodded graciously and motioned at her to rise.

“No, not at all. We have had a good flight, and taken only seven days, instead of nine as Song said we would, although I carried Shun part of the way... what is happening with them now?” he asked, nodding at Shun and his captain who were being led away by a fresh detachment of legionary dragons. Captain Lanfen watched with a stony expression, a hand on her dragon’s side.

“They are being taken back to prison in the Western Fort” Lung Li Zhao explained, “Lung Tien Xiang, the High Commissioner, Lin Zexu, is anxious to speak to you. If you would prefer to take some refreshment before-“

“No,” Temeraire said, “No, I am ready to see him now. Will, are you?”

Will nodded, pale. Zhao looked a little taken aback to be interrupted, but she caught herself and nodded, her pearls clattering softly. “We thank you for your condescension. Pray follow me.”

She led them behind the watchtower and into a pleasant garden abutting the city wall, planted with ancient magnolias.

“The Honourable High Commissioner,” Zhao announced, and bowed.

Temeraire breathed easier. He had expected another military man, hard and merciless like Captain Lanfen, but Lin Zexu was a benevolent-looking, grey-haired man in a scholar’s robe, seated at a low table in the shade of a flowering bush amidst a small entourage of scribes and officials, the whole scene more akin to a garden picnic than a political council.

Lin Zexu prostrated himself before Temeraire and then invited Will and Gong Su to join him at the table. Will followed suit, stiffly, and Temeraire seated himself behind him. Taking inspiration from one of the carved statues dotting the garden, he arranged his talons neatly and arched his back and tail upwards, with his ruff stretched out proudly – it could not hurt to remind everyone that he was a Celestial.

They exchanged a few pleasantries, and Lin Zexu commended Will on his command of Chinese.

“I am saddened to hear your enjoyment of the country should have been spoiled by a pair of felons,” the High Commissioner said, “I assure you the creeping vine of the addiction is being uprooted with the greatest resolve. To cut out an abscess, though painful, is better than to nourish the evil.” He paused.

“I commend your effort, Sir,” Will said, a little stifled.

“Indeed,” Lin Zexu nodded, “And we have asked your country’s government to discipline their traders, but the ships keep coming. We have required the captains to sign a bond to repudiate the criminal opium trade, but they refuse and laugh in the face of our laws. We have written a letter to your Queen and seen it delivered by Jade dragon, but we have not received a reply.”

He let the words hang in the air. His tone was still friendly, but Temeraire started to feel a little uncomfortable. Abandoning his statuesque decorum, he twitched an ear and leaned in closer.

“I hope,” Lin Zexu continued, “that your auspicious arrival in our country heralds the long-awaited message of peace and harmony, and an end to the devilish trade that has been rotting away the life-blood of our nation?”

“Sir,” Will said, “Both Lung Tien Xiang and myself have nothing but the deepest aversion to the trade in opium. However, I am sorry to say we do not carry any official message from our country’s government. We are here out of personal concern, after word reached us that Lung Tien Ning has been causing disruption in your realm.”

Lin Zexu did not look very surprised. “Then you must permit me to question you a little further, on certain… accusations levelled against you,” he said, “Commander Song and Honoured Bannerman Lanfen, what have you to say?”

Temeraire watched in irritation as Captain Lanfen stepped forward and bowed to Lin Zexu. “Venerated Lord, Lung Tien Xiang’s companion is not telling the truth,” she said, “On our journey here, we have had ample evidence of their true motives, which plainly are to aid the treacherous work of their countrymen.”

Temeraire snorted disdainfully. “Of that, you can have no evidence whatsoever, because we are not here to help the East India Company!”

“We first encountered them in Sichuan Province,” Lanfen continued unperturbed, “Where we had been sent to retrieve the traitor from our banner’s ranks, by the honourable General Fang’s wise command. We have travelled many days with them since, and at every juncture, Lung Tien Xiang and his companion chose to interpose themselves between the criminals and our Emperor’s just laws. Faced with the evil consequences of their compatriots’ trade, they showed neither remorse nor respect, displaying much the same spirit as the shipowners who disdain the law and refuse to sign the bond. Instead of letting the traitors be served the fate they deserve, Lung Tien Xiang and his companion continued to ply them with the distilled juice of the poppy, the same poison their agents use to lure our dragons to the pipes, in order to interrogate them and gain information on the disposition of our army.”

“High Commissioner,” Will said, “With the utmost respect, but this is an unfortunate misunderstanding. It is true Lung Tien Xiang took pity on the dragon Shun and his rider, but from no deeper motivation than a desire to ease their misery. You may try them in your court now and punish them as you see fit, and will encounter no obstruction from us.”

“You deny it,” Lanfen said, with a satisfied air, “But there is more. They have been conspiring with Gong Su, an agent of Lung Tien Qian, whom everyone knows to have grown embittered since her granddaughter’s banishment from the Forbidden City in favour of a dragon of purer blood and sweeter temperament. Now this agent of Qian’s, bent on seeing Lung Tien Ning restored, insisted on being put in charge of the prisoner’s meals. My servants have observed him put the forbidden concoction in the dragon’s portions. He, too, is an accomplice in the Englishmen’s wicked scheme. I have evidence to show you.”

At a wave of her hand, two of her crew climbed down from Song’s back carrying a large unwashed cooking pot, which they set down before Lin Zexu. “These are the remains of last night’s meal,” Lanfen said, “It is what they have been feeding the prisoners.”

Gong Su rose and bowed to Lin Zexu. “The Honoured Bannerman Lanfen ist concerned for the safety of our realm, which is commendable, especially seeing as her own clan has been tarnished by the milk of the poppy.” Temeraire noticed Lanfen flinch at this side blow. “However, the worried state of her mind has led her to pursue shadows. It is true I took charge of feeding the prisoner dragon, in order to allow him to be conveyed here to his rightful trial. I decided to do so in order to ease the burden on the honourable Lung Tien Xiang, the only dragon in our company large enough to carry the prisoner.”

“Liar,” Lanfen hissed, “Honoured Lord, I know you have tax collectors trained to discern the taste of the poppy juice to help you fight the blight on our shores. I beg you to summon one of them now, and try the remains that are left in this cauldron, so you can be convinced.”

“Enough,” Lin Zexu said, calmly, when Will would have spoken up, “Bannerman Lanfen’s suggestion has merit. Lung Li Zhao, you are charged to fetch one of our civil servants from the harbour.”

They sat in tense silence after the small green dragon had bowed and departed. Temeraire noticed Will sitting tense, one hand clutching at a fold of his silk robe, while Gong Su remained perfectly easy, apparently unconcerned. He tried to crane his head forward a little, to sniff at the cooking-pot with its scraps of gruel, but he noticed Lanfen’s eyes on him, and checked himself.

Little Zhao dropped back over the city wall a short while later, accompanied by another small dragon of a mottled brown breed with a long pointed snout and frills along the crest of his spine. Zhao had evidently already explained his task to him, for after bowing deep to Lin Zexu, the customs dragon immediately hopped across to the pot to take the scent with his long twitching tongue. He looked up once, into their expectant faces, and then bent down to lick up a few of the scraps of gruel. He sucked on them with an air of great importance, and Temeraire was beginning to feel a little annoyed at this puffery when the dragon finally spat to the side and announced. “No opium, Honoured Lord, although it does taste odd.”

Will’s fingers unclenched, and Lanfen’s face paled.

“ _Ganmaidazao_ to relieve spasms, _Kaixingsan_ to strengthen the heart and tranquilise the mind,” Gong Su said calmly, “An apothecary I know in Guiyang is a master of his trade.”

“He knew you would try him, and left it out last night!” Lanfen hissed, her hand tight on the hilt of her sword with the knuckles showing white, “Bring the traitor here, and she will tell you how Lung Tien Xiang’s companion tried to interrogate her and promised her her life against full knowledge of the calamities that have befallen our army-“

“I never!” Will exclaimed, jumping to his feet to look her straight in the eye. “This is not true! And if you think Qiu Ji will lie for you, just because she is your niece, I would not be so certain, after you abused her and her dragon the way you did.”

“I bow to British authority on the subject of lies,” she scowled.

Lin Zexu raised a hand. “As a man cannot be known by his looks, neither can the sea be fathomed by a gourd,” he said gently, before turning to Temeraire and Will. “We will allow your deeds to speak for you and prove the rumours false. You will go to the Humen where the devil-ships have established their illicit hold. You will convince your countrymen to give up their opium stores and sink the chests to the bottom of the sea. And after you return, you will supervise the execution of the prisoners. You shall do for the rider, and Lung Tien Xiang for the beast, in front of the eyes of the regiment they disgraced, so all dragons of their banner will see what becomes of one who gives in to the opium poison.”

 

\--

 

Lung Li Zhao led Will to a room in the city’s Western Fort and retreated with under many bows, but her remarks left Will in no doubt as to her master‘s great condescension at letting him stay there, as foreigners were usually banned from entering the city and only allowed around the factories. His allocated room was spacious, with a large bed and desk and even a songbird fluttering in a handsome bamboo cage by the window. However, Will would gladly have foregone the honour and be spared the feeling of being trapped.

One of Lin Zexu’s aides had explained the proceedings of the execution in almost reverent detail and showed them around the courtyard in which it was to be held, with Will unhappily conscious that where intimidation was intended, it had been entirely successful. He could still see the scaffold in front his eyes, crusted with the blood of the last pair of unfortunates sacrificed there, desperate claw-marks etched into the flagstones like a silent cry.

Temeraire had at first been incredulous and angry, rather than scared. “They cannot mean to execute a dragon,” he had muttered, again and again, a threatening reverberation in his voice, “they cannot… not in China…”

“They have so many dragons here, an individual’s life does not count much against the discipline of their service,” Will muttered again to himself, rationally, but the words left a bitter taste. After all the admirable harmony of men and dragons he had witnessed, it was a terrible blow to not only see, but be made an instrument in this piece of barbarism.

Steering his thoughts away with an effort, he wondered whether to change back into Western clothes for their rendezvous with the Company officials – at Chengdu, Qian’s servants had made a valiant effort to refurbish his worn and dirtied things. But no, the British gentlemen would surely notice the turned sleeves, the odd way in which the shirt's collar had been pressed, and the missing necktie; such things were sure to brandish a man, where distasteful deeds would not. No, he would remain in the blue silk of his Chinese robes, as clean and formal as he could manage, and have them sneer at him openly, rather than whisper behind his back.

He saw Temeraire huddled up in the courtyard, a picture of misery, and Will would gladly have hurled something across the room.

The convicts were to be tied to posts and shot, one after the other to preclude any joint attempt at escape, although seeing Will's shocked expression, the official had explained that beast and rider would be granted a parting-word in the morning before the execution. “Unity follows division, and division follows unity”, the man had said, with a wry smile, and gone on, unperturbed, to explain that a whole squadron of soldiers would fire at once so no blame would attach to any one man. However, the command to do so was to be given by Will and Temeraire - by them alone - and the prospect affected Temeraire badly. Will knew he was a fighting-dragon, that he had clawed opponents mid-air and shattered enemies with the Divine Wind. But to end a dragon's life with a cold command was a very different thing.

Will walked across to his baggage, carelessly bundled into a corner of the guestroom. Of course the laudanum bottle was not there to offer peace – Gong Su had spent it all, in reducing doses, and only the previous evening had served Shun a meal entirely free from opium, as a quick and rushed exchange in English on their way to their guestroom had clarified for Will. He badly wanted something to do, something to occupy him while they waited for the signal to set off downriver, to the mouth of the Pearl River known as the strait of Humen.

He found their newest letter, but quickly put it aside – intolerable to put into words the monstrous task required of them, more intolerable still to contemplate how his father might have chosen in his place. He felt grimly certain that Admiral Laurence would never have agreed to order a dragon to be shot in order to save his own neck, a measure of courage Little Will could not claim for himself.

Still rummaging though the stationery, Will’s fingers touched a small vial.

He drew it out and held it to the light. The pearly-white Nakhara poison looked unaltered from the evening Tom Riley had given it to him. However, since then, it had travelled through the subcontinental heat and the chill of the mountains, been soaked by monsoon rains and tossed about mid-air, and he could not imagine it still held any of the deadly power he had witnessed at Nalkonda. _If, only if…_

He walked across to the cage by the window and opened the hatch. The little passerine tried to peck at his fingers, but Will had ample experience netting birds and butterflies as a child in the Peaks, and more recently for Professor Owen's lectures on the comparative anatomy of dragon flight. He held the struggling creature tightly in one hand and, with infinite care, unstopped the vial to pour a drop into the tea cup on the table. He took one of the quills from their case, dipped it and, coaxing the bird’s beak open, dropped some of the poison into the small gullet.

The bird jerked its head from side to side and redoubled its efforts to break free. Will shook his head. He was not surprised, only a little bewildered at himself, for having indulged so ridiculous a fancy. He tried to congratulate himself on at least having tried the venom’s potency before handing it to Professor Owen. He could almost hear the scholar’s rasping laugh – _we are in the business of science, Mr Laurence, not the theatre, so pray let us have no more fanciful tales…_

He rose to put the bird back in its cage. As more of an afterthought, he drew out the pin he had used to secure the collar of the wrapped robe – Qian’s tailors had laughed at him when he had requested to keep it, but he had been uncomfortable with his neck so very nearly bare. He dipped the needle in the poison. The bird squirmed again. Will carefully pulled aside some of the soft plumage from its neck, and stabbed the needle under its skin.

It happened almost too quickly to be believed - the small head stiffening, the talons curling tightly. The wings ceased their frantic struggle. Will felt the small heart flutter once again against his fingers, and then, nothing. When he opened his hand, the bird was stiff, rigid, and dead.

His fingers still trembled when he wrapped the vial in a rag to slip it into his wide sleeve, and trembled even worse when he took up their logbook, ripped out an empty page, dipped another quill in ink, and began to write.

 

\--

 

He found Lung Li Zhao in conversation with the human official who had earlier explained the order of the execution, by the gate of the Western fort.

“ _Kap-tan_ ,” the small dragon said, bowing deeply, “I hope you have not found fault with your lodgings?”

“None at all,” Will said, struggling to keep his voice unconcerned, and to nod at the official. “And I thank you for the explanations. We have understood our role. May I ask one small favour, before we depart for the Humen?”

The small dragon looked at him a little puzzled. “What do you desire?”

“The convict captain we brought with us expressed an interest in our Gospels,” Will said. “I was hoping to be allowed to see her, briefly, in order to teach her our Lord’s prayer in preparation for her execution. It is very important to followers of my creed.”

The official who had earlier showed them around stared at him bewildered and a little disgusted, and Will wondered whether he had just added a fresh blot to Qiu Ji’s name, that of heretic – but it could not matter if her life was already forfeit. After exchanging a glance with Lung Li Zhao, the man nodded, slowly. “I suppose a short interview can be granted.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Will said, nervously tucking his hand into his sleeve and closing his fingers around the vial and the folded sheet of paper. He hoped very much that none of the Chinese guards could read.

The fort’s dungeon was oddly arranged: the dragons’ cells to the west and the human prisoners’ to the east, as far apart as possible. Lin Zexu’s aide explained Will’s request to one of the jailors. The soldier nodded, confused, and then led Will down a dark passage, cramped enough that they had to walk single-file. Will felt the damp chill of the stone walls creep over his skin and could not banish the thought that the passages had been built precisely too narrow for a dragon, even one of the little Jades, to negotiate. No beast would stand a chance of extracting their captain, once they had been buried in this hole.

Qiu Ji sat in a small cell, cross-legged and composed. She raised her head and shielded her eyes against the light of the guard’s torch, but her expression did not change at all.

“I have brought you the gospel verses I promised you, written down here,” Will said loudly, and reached through the bars to put the folded page in her hands. "You may read it now, and then we can run through it together."

Fortunately, she did not protest, but only frowned deeply as she unfolded the sheet to squint at his unlovely Chinese characters.

_Our Father in heaven, may all honour your name_  
_may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth_  
_I beg one favour which is to spare my dragon’s sanity where_  
_Your dragon’s life can no longer be saved. When they let you see your beast_  
_for parting, give him this poison._  
_It brings death very quickly with almost no pain._  
_Temeraire will not bear to have a dragon executed in his name._  
_Be careful: The venom must enter the blood._

He saw her eyes widen a little when she read it and her hand quickly closed around the vial, but her face betrayed no emotion. Will glared at her until she folded her hands after him and repeated the prayer, for the benefit of the guard who was watching them impatiently, tapping his short sword against his thigh.

"Amen," he finished. "That means, so be it."

"Amen" she parroted tonelessly, and handed him the page back.

Will put it to the flame. The guard grunted and snatched the torch away, then he took hold of Will’s arm and pulled him away, back into the narrow corridor leading towards the light of day. The page on the floor burnt and shriveled quickly, but throwing a look over his shoulder before darkness fell again, Will saw Qiu Ji rise to her feet, pull out the pin knotting up her hair, and proceed to grate it on the wall with short, determined strokes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: On the way to Guangzhou/ Canton, Gong Su finds a way of relieving opium withdrawal by mixing the captive dragon Shun’s food with laudanum and herbs. Little Will tries to learn more about Ning’s whereabouts from Shun’s captain Qiu Ji, but she refuses to cooperate. At Guangzhou, Commissioner Lin Zexu has been tasked with rooting out the illegal opium trade, while the Honourable East India Company has set up a blockade of the Pearl River delta to stop any merchants reaching the city until the Chinese stop interfering with what they view as free trade. Lin Zexu sets Will and Temeraire the task of convincing the British traders to hand over their opium and pledge to bring no more into the country._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of chapter for warnings.

“Become very much a Chinaman already, have we, Mr Laurence?” Captain Elliot, the superintendent of trade at Canton, observed tiredly when Will was presented to him. “Or ought I say, Your Imperial Majesty?”

“Captain Laurence will do,” Will said curtly, trying to ignore the irony. “The Chinese have had the kindness to furnish me with new clothes. We have had a difficult passage, having been diverted from our intended course in India – I believe some communication has reached you?”

“About the Marattas snatching you? Yes, there was something, from some covert commander in Madras. Sad business, all that,” Elliot sighed. “I am glad to see you well.”

Will nodded. “I have come to negotiate the terms of a settlement with the Qing government, regarding the blockade of the river.”

“I see,” Elliot said, running a hand over his beard as he took a seat at the captain’s desk. “On what authority, if I may ask?”

“Commissioner Lin Zexu’s,” Will said, “who enjoys the trust of the Daoguang Emperor.” He handed Elliot a sealed paper, Commissioner Lin’s final warning and the bond he wished them to sign.

“Indeed,” the superintendent murmured and put it down on the desk unopened, exchanging a glance with Captain Hall of the _Nemesis_ , who was standing behind him. The other Company captains were still crowding into the great cabin, after being rowed across from their ships barricading the narrow strait at the mouth of the Pearl River known as Bocca Tigris, and there was a low hiss of enraged whispers, which Elliot made no effort to stifle. He seemed a young man for his high post, not yet forty, and left the distinct impression of not wanting to be where he was, aboard an iron-built steamship baking under the sun of the South China Sea. Will had heard of him before, Captain Charles Elliot, a Navy man turned administrator, with glowing colonial credentials, a staunch abolitionist who had been instrumental in the peaceful dissolution of sugar plantations. They might even have crossed paths before, at his parents’ house in London.

“Let us hear their ridiculous terms then, and have it over with,” one of the assembled captains shouted.

Will looked at Captain Elliot, who waved a hand tiredly. “If you please.”

Will cleared his throat and cast a surreptitious glance to the next porthole, but it was too small to make out Temeraire on his pontoon beside the ship. They had roundly ignored his request to hold the conference on deck, where Temeraire might observe, and Will had had no authority to demand otherwise.

“Commissioner Lin wishes to remind you of the requirement for all trading nations to respect the Imperial ban on smuggling, and on the import of opium,” he began. “Every captain wishing to anchor at Canton is required to sign this bond repudiating the trade in opium, and must submit to having his hold searched. We have been asked to make an example of it today, to search the ships under Her Majesty’s flag presently anchored here, and confiscate any opium we may find.”

Elliot looked faintly sorrowful, while one of the captains snorted disdainfully. “Sign a bond like we’ve come to beg, and have the Chinamen rummage through the holds of English ships? What next?” he shouted, to cries of _hear, hear_.

“What if we reject the terms and demand fresh ones?” Superintendent Elliot asked.

Will clenched his fists behind his back. “The Chinese Empire will view it as a declaration of war and their navy and aerial legions will be ordered to destroy your ships.”

The Company captains did not look impressed. “Chinese junks,” one of them snorted. “Oh, but now I’m scared.”

“Sir, it would be a most calamitous state of affairs, which could be averted at small cost to our nation,” Will said, still addressing Captain Elliot. The superintendent of trade had finally taken up Lin Zexu’s letter and opened it, his eyes following the columns. Evidently he had some grasp of Chinese. He was not a Company man, but accountable to the foreign office and the Queen, and Will desperately hoped he might see reason.

“Small cost?” the first captain began again. “If you call your nation’s honour cheap the price! We will not tolerate an oriental despot ordering our traders about! Until they remove the impediments to free trade, no vessel will be permitted to reach Canton. We will see how quickly they change their mind, once our silver stops lining their treasury’s pockets…”

“Enough,” Superintendent Elliot said, rising. “Captain Laurence, the terms are unacceptable. No man entertains a deeper detestation of the disgrace and sin of the opium trade, and I have sought to discourage it by all the lawful means in my power. However, requiring British traders to enter into bonds to a foreign government, or to have their ships searched, by yourself or any Chinese official, is entirely out of the question. I cannot be reconciled with British liberty and the property and dignity of the British crown.”

Will stared at him. “So this is the reply you wish me to make?”

“Yes,” Elliot said and drew out a letter, his sorrowful mien giving way to resignation, “and as you can see, it is in agreement with the wishes of the foreign minister Lord Palmerston, who wrote this in reply to the outrageous letter the Qing government sent to Her Majesty.” He handed it to Will.

Will accepted it and bowed, stiffly. He unfolded the sheet to read, and had to draw himself together not to crumple it and throw it onto the floor.

“Sir, this is impossible. I cannot… I refuse… these terms are beyond anything!” He pointed to one of the paragraphs. “I can second the request for our government’s envoys to be received without the strictures placed on a tributary nation, and for rights of extraterritoriality in the administration of justice. But to ask for British subjects carrying contraband to be let off free of punishment is frankly outrageous, when the Chinese put their own subjects and dragons to death for less, because they see no other way to stem this ungodly tide! And to demand favoured trading status, and for more ports to be opened, and islands ceded to us – it must seem a piece of utter insolence, when we have done nothing to earn their respect and trust, and everything to deserve their censure!”

The disapproving murmurs had all but died down now. Only stony silence answered him.

“That, Captain Laurence, is not for you to decide,” Elliot finally said, rising. “You asked for terms, you have them. This conference is adjourned.” He nodded to one of the Captains, the loudest one when it had come to deriding the Chinese demands. “Captain Smith, you will show Captain Laurence the disposition of your Company's forces assembled here, so he can carry a full report back to Commissioner Lin and allow the Qing to reconsider their stance.”

 

\--

 

Little Will looked very bitter and angry when he appeared back on the deck, clutching a piece of paper.

“They refuse,” he said curtly when he had hurried across to Temeraire. “You must go and speak to the merchantmen directly!” He pointed at the crowd of trading ships anchored further out at sea, at a respectful distance from the East India Company’s gunboats and frigates.

Temeraire looked at him doubtfully. “But Will, what about Ning? Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, “They did not mention her. We cannot waste time looking for her now. Unless we convince the merchants to sign the bond and get hold of their opium, it doesn’t matter anyways…. Our crew might be on one of those ships, Temeraire. I beg you, go!”

Temeraire nodded, his head coming up anxiously at this reminder. “Oh, of course, you are right. But where are you going? We ought to stay together.”

“With Captain Smith,” Will said, pointing to a small jolly boat, toy-like against the iron hull of the East India Company’s steam flagship. “Elliot has asked him to show me their ships so I may frighten the Chinese with it. I hate to make myself their instrument, but I will try to tally their guns. Lin Zexu has every reason to be displeased with me so far, but he might listen to that argument.”

“Oh, but would it not be easier if you and this Captain Smith rode on my back and looked from aloft?” Temeraire suggested, still unhappy to see him go alone.

But Will shook his head. “We have little time and must use it wisely. Be quick, and then come back to fetch me.”

Temeraire nodded. “I will. But – what is this you have in your hand?”

The piece of paper was a folded letter, Temeraire saw it distinctly. But Will tucked it away with a dark, angry frown that reminded him of Laurence. "I will show you later.”

Temeraire watched unhappily as Will followed the Company officers into the boat. But then he thought of his crew, pushed himself off the pontoon, and flew out to the assembled trading ships. A few of them hastily weighted anchor and tried to beat away from him, as if they seriously meant to outpace a dragon.

“Wait, I only want to ask you a question!” Temeraire called out to them, in English, French and Chinese, and for good measure in two of the languages he had heard in India, cursing himself for his lack of signal-flags. But what was one to do, without a crew. He hovered in the air to inspect the forest of masts more closely. “Have any of you come from Madras?”

He received no reply, although a cautious flag signal went up on one of the ships towards the rear, a swift new Baltimore clipper, handsomely painted. _Permission to land._

Flying closer, Temeraire saw she travelled under an American flag, and, to his surprise and delight, there was a small brown-and-white dragon perched on her deck.

“John Wampanoag!” Temeraire exclaimed, “Why, what are you doing here?”

John greeted him happily when he recognized him. “Temeraire of England, in the flesh! And I thought you a Chinese dragon coming to bite us.”

The clipper was too small to accommodate Temeraire, but John’s crew threw him a makeshift pontoon made of barrels slung together and stiffened with two large planks. It was inconveniently cramped, but hunching himself very small, Temeraire could just about fit, with his tail dangling into the sea.

“No, not at all,” he said, when he had arranged himself, “I am looking for my crew. You haven’t come from Madras, have you? Or met any who have?”

John Wampanoag looked puzzled. “Mislaid your people again? Well, I can’t help you there, I’m sorry. We’re out of San Francisco. Furs and ginseng root, that’s my line these days, and usually we do well out of it.” He patted the railing of his new ship.

“But… how long have you been here?”

“Ten days,” John shrugged. “Mind you, some of us have been moored here almost a month. The damned Englishmen won’t open the way to Canton. I’ve managed to do a little business in the villages, going by night, but it’s not what we’ve come here for.” He snorted. “Once our president gets wind of this impertinence, your people had better apologize quick, or certain Canadian rebels might soon find themselves in the way of a little more aid.“

“The East India Company are not _my_ people at all,” Temeraire clarified, but he could not help feeling a little ashamed, “and I am sure Parliament will disapprove most thoroughly, once they hear of all this. In any case, even the Company can’t take on all the dragons of China.”

“Exactly, and I'm not planning to turn back,” John Wampanoag laughed. “Come here all the way only to turn tail at the gates of China? No. My investors wouldn’t like it at all. I’m taking my chances. There will be an opening soon, one way or another.”

“An opening…” Temeraire said. “But John, why don’t you all just sign the bond against the opium trade? That would be between you and the Qing, they might open another port, and the East India Company could not say anything against it.”

The American dragon looked at him amused. “Well, I would certainly sign, but my company is clear of opium. Now if you ask Perkins & Co., over there,” he pointed at another American ship, “or Jardine and Matheson,” this with a disdainful nod at a British competitor, “they do, so they think differently. And even if I signed, the British dogs would still not allow my ship to pass through. It is modern piracy, is what it is.”

Temeraire shifted nervously, sending his small pontoon wobbling. “But why don’t the Chinese dragons just chase them away?”

John Wampanoag shook his head. “They would, if they could. But the British have their own dragons.”

“Their own dragons?” Temeraire asked, dismayed. “You mean Ning is still supporting them? Despite all they have done?”

“Supporting them?” John Wampanoag laughed. “Oh, certainly. She has her own army… all those poor opium-smokers. They nickname her Lady Cold Flame, from what I’ve heard in the villages.”

Temeraire stared at him. “Lady Cold Flame? Oh, but that is outrageous! Where is she?”

John Wampanoag shrugged. “Everyone talks about her, but I haven’t seen so much as a wing-tip.”

“Well, if she dares to show her face, I will tell her my opinion of this sort of sneaking behaviour, you may be sure of that,” Temeraire growled, his ruff stiffening. But he drew himself together, remembering what Will had told him. “Which traders are carrying the opium, did you say?”

John pointed them out to him again.

Temeraire thanked him heartily and, after a short moment's consideration, even swallowed his pride to apologize on behalf of England - Parliament would not send an official reply for months, if at all, so he thought there could be no harm in it. John Wampanoag nodded graciously, and Temeraire took his leave to fly across to the _Sylph_ , the large armed merchantman belonging to Jardine & Matheson’s company. The sailors on deck promptly ran away. He hovered next to her and growled. “Where is your captain?” he shouted after the men.

But the deck and rigging remained deserted.

Angered, Temeraire beat upwards in a tight spiral. “Now look here!” he shouted, loud enough that every captain must hear him. “You will bring out your opium stores now, or-“

He gathered his breath and roared at the water – not with the full force of the Divine Wind, but still impressive enough to make a foamy crest rise and roll out towards the horizon.

The door to _Sylph_ ’s sterncastle was opened and a knot of men appeared – merchants, not navy men, although their captain looked at Temeraire with more disdain than respect. “What do you want?”

Temeraire drew himself up. “I am Temeraire and I have come from England to tell you that what you are doing is wrong. Your opium is poisoning the people and dragons of China. It has been banned. I am sure you know already, but in any case I’ve told you again now, so you may save your excuses. If you want to trade with the Chinese, you must sign Commissioner Lin’s bond and bring out all your opium now.”

The merchant captain stared up at him. “You have no authority-“ he began, but Temeraire gathered his breath again. The man hastily leaned over to his second-in-command, whispering orders.

“No,” Temeraire hissed at him, “I could hear that perfectly well. _Half the opium_ will not do. You will surrender all of it!”

A few other ships were waving signal-flags at him now. The _Calliope_ , a small East Indiaman sailing under British flag, was the closest by. Her sailors had already piled some ten chests of opium onto her deck, and more were being handed up from her cargo hold.

Temeraire swept the chests into his talons; not very many, but at least something to show to Will and Lin Zexu. “Thank you. You are an honest man. I shall ask the High Commissioner to make special note of you,” he told the _Calliope_ ’s captain, who stood mute and pale with terror.

Temeraire gave up waiting for a reply and soared upwards again, waving the chests. “Whoever else wishes to be pardoned needs to do as the honourable captain of the _Calliope_ has done and surrender their stores!” he thundered. “I will give you some time to bring them out onto your decks now while I fetch my captain so he can give you the papers you all need to sign, and once you have done so, I promise you we and Lin Zexu’s troops will open your way to Canton, so that-”

“No, you will not,” a clear voice interrupted him from above. “I beg you to reconsider your course, most honoured sire, Lung Tien Xiang.”

Temeraire whipped his head upwards. A slender, elegant dragon hovered in the air above him. Behind her, at least thirty Chinese dragons broke from the clouds.

Temeraire reflexively opened his talons. The opium chests plummeted into the sea.

With her full growth on her, Lung Tien Ning was a magnificent sight to behold, only a little smaller than he and carrying herself like a queen. She had no harness, only a plain silver collar with a single teardrop pendant of jade that emphasized the rich opalescence of her skin. Each beat of her wings sent iridescent ripples along her body like flashing rainbows, her hide unspoiled by battle scars, and even the irregular jagged spikes along her back which Temeraire had always found coarse in Iskierka looked both splendid and terrible in her.

Temeraire opened and closed his mouth silently, at a loss for words. He had no mind for the white sails that had been spread on the blockade ships, and the frigates that were moving out towards the merchantmen, like dogs sent to corral a herd of skittish sheep.

Below him, John Wampanoag had gone aloft to circle his ship. “Well, I call that an opening. Let’s make a run for it, then,” he muttered, and darted back to his ship to give his orders.

 

\--

 

Standing on deck of the _Volage_ next to Captain Smith, Little Will badly missed Riley’s advice. His friend would have had easy work judging the firepower in front of him. He for his part could only count the ships and clumsily lump them into _large, middling_ and _small_.

 _Large_ looked entirely dreadful with the _Nemesis_ ’ iron bulk and black-smoking chimney. _Middling_ was represented by three even more heavily armed sailing ships, which looked no better, and even _small_ – four trim little ships like the _Volage_ – likely posed a formidable threat, given how quickly they moved about. Will counted gun ports, but he had no idea what calibre of cannons lurked there, or what their range might be.

A signal flashed out from the _Nemesis_ , and _Volage_ , who had been patrolling in an elegant triangle pattern, changed her course again. Will tried to keep track of the sailor’s work with the sails, but it all happened too quickly – frantic coiling and knotting of ropes, some sails hauled in close, one let loose and swinging around with bone-breaking force, more coiling and hauling of cables, and suddenly they were headed towards the open sea, water spraying away from the bow.

They skirted remarkably close to the shore, and Will could not help asking Captain Smith whether they did not risk running aground.

“Shallow draft,” Smith said with an air of satisfaction, “built for this sort of endeavour. We can go all the way upriver to Canton, if we have to.”

“And where are we going?” Will asked, trying to keep his voice level.

Smith trained his glass on the horizon. “To preserve order amongst the merchantmen.”

He handed Will the spyglass. Behind them, the three large sail ships had stayed to bar the river mouth, with larger gaps between them now, while the small craft, _Volage_ included, fanned out towards the huddled crowd of merchantmen. Will’s heart beat faster when he managed to focus the glass and saw Temeraire soaring above them, shouting and waving something.

“I have seen enough, Sir,” he said, quickly handing the glass back to Smith. “Pray put out a signal for Temeraire to fetch me back. We need to go back to Guangzhou to deliver Superintendent Elliot’s message.”

Captain Smith did not reply, the glass raised to his eyes. Will briefly wondered whether there was any use trying to shout across to Temeraire. But the distance was too big. He could only hope Temeraire would not do anything rash.

“What is he doing?” Captain Smith murmured, “Oh – what is that bastard doing over there?”

“Excuse me?” Will protested, assuming Smith spoke of Temeraire, but then he realized the captain was looking in an entirely different direction. A small swift-sailing clipper had drawn away from the other merchant vessels. A small brown dragon appeared to be flying in its lead, pointing a way between the approaching Company patrols, _Volage_ one of them.

Behind them, a new signal had come up on _Nemesis_ ’ flag hoist. _Ready arms._

A nervous young lieutenant came running up to the poop deck to whisper something to Smith. The captain scowled and nodded. “Yes, of course to quarters! A warning shot! We are the closest, who else will respond?”

The officer saluted and hurried away again. A few quick adjustments to her sails, and the whole ship slowed her pace and drew up to present her broadside to the clipper.

The dragon saw the threat and backwinged for an instant. But then, he gave an angry hiss and darted at the _Volage_ to flutter about her sails like an angry moth. He disordered the men in the rigging enough that one close-reefed sail flapped loose and caught the wind full, hauling the ship about in an undignified manner. Will lost his balance and stumbled onto the planks of the deck, just as the broadside exploded in fire and fury, to no more effect than knocking off the merchantman’s bowstrip.

Will staggered back to his feet. Above them, the brown dragon laughed as he beat away. “There, meddling Englishmen!” he called in cheerful new-world accents. “That’s what it feels like to have others interfering with your business!”

Captain Smith had already hurried down to the main deck to shout at the wretched lieutenant. “What are you waiting for? Give chase! We will catch these American blaggards at the river-“

The rest of his words was drowned out by a round of cannon-shot exploding from the shore. It caught the _Volage_ near the stern, splinters flying and shouts from below, and the force of the impact nearly knocked Will over a second time. When he had steadied himself against the railing, the _Volage_ ’s port broadside went thundering in retaliation – against a Chinese tower at the shore, Will realized. Then her sails had been put to rights again and she rushed out into open waters, in pursuit of the American clipper.

But all of a sudden, the riverbanks were up in smoke and flame. A whole line of towers opened fire on the ships of the blockade. The Company ships responded with deadly mettle, their range vastly outpacing the Chinese batteries. Above the smoke and fury, a blur of bright red and green wings rose – a Chinese dragon squadron, carrying incendiaries.

Will turned around in desperation to look for Temeraire, and, squinting against the smoke from the gun ports, saw him still above the trading ships. But there was another dragon next to him: long and sleek and hovering with a Celestial’s silent grace, and behind her, another thirty Chinese dragons.

“Temeraire! Come back!” Will screamed, cupping his hands around his mouth. Temeraire did not stand a chance against so many opponents.

“See, we have our own dragons,” Captain Smith smiled, returning to the poop deck with two Company marines. “Trust me, they will do anything for us. They owe us their lives.”

The alien Celestial gave a flick of one of her wings, and the Chinese-looking dragons behind her broke into neat formations to intercept the squadrons from the shore and defend the Company ships. Will stared, confused and aghast.

Captain Smith nodded with satisfaction. “Now you stay here where your beast can see you,” he told Will, “and I swear the moment he so much as lifts a talon against our ships, I will have you shot.”

 

\--

 

The thundering roll of the cannons cut through Temeraire’s awestruck paralysis, and suddenly he noticed the ships all in disorder and a cloud of smoke going up near the western shore. One of the Company frigates had opened fire on a Chinese tower.

“No!” Temeraire cried, “We weren’t done negotiating-“

“Negotiating?” Ning snorted, nodding at the merchantmen. “With them?”

Flame signals were passed along the forts, and in front of Temeraire’s horrified eyes, the Chinese shore batteries that had looked on impassively opened fire on the Company ships, and a whole crowd of legionary dragons rose to the air.

“So soon? Well, I suppose it cannot be helped…” Ning sighed, and at a small sign, the dragons who had flown holding patterns behind her swiftly rushed past to meet the Chinese legionaries. There could be no doubt now. Ning was helping the East India Company, and proudly so. Temeraire could have shaken her.

She watched with a satisfied expression, as if she expected him to congratulate her. “You can negotiate with me if you like,” she said.

Temeraire snorted disdainfully. “You are lending your support to these terrible opium-merchants! Do you not know they are poisoning China’s dragons?”

“A matter of perspective,” Ning said, reflectively. “For each dragon they lose, I gain one – unless their dragons are silly and don’t want to join me, in which case the Qing command them to be killed, which is even more silly, but not my fault.”

Temeraire stared at her. There was no denying she had devised herself a private army, but in an underhanded, scheming sort of way – much like Lien would have done. But Lien was dead, dead and buried at St Helena, of a growth in the stomach if the English dragon-surgeons’ report was to be trusted, and not a single egg to her name. Parliament had sent a note of condolence to the deposed French Emperor, and Temeraire had signed, too, almost sorry for so inglorious a passing, but relieved to think it the end of the corruption in his line. It was a terrible blow to see the same ruthless venom coursing through his own daughter’s veins. “How can you speak so callously, of your own nation!” he hissed at her. “I will not negotiate with you, and if you were the last dragon in China!”

With this, he brought in his wings and dove sharply away, straight towards the ships, weaving between the claws and teeth of Ning’s dragons. But in the smoke, mess and shouting, he could not see any sign of Will. Already, the first shore battery had ceased fire.

He batted another one of Ning’s dragons out of the way, a ragged and unharnessed one this time, sending her tumbling away squalling with blood streaming from her side. A cannon ball grazed his leg and a biting cloud of smoke almost blocked his view – a small sloop-of-war’s sail had caught fire where one of the legionary dragons had managed to land a flaming ball of tar. But suddenly, a gust of smoke blew over and he caught a glimpse of the name _VOLAGE_ in bright white letters over a black frigate’s stern windows – and there was Will, on the high deck towards the ship’s stern, with two Company soldiers.

“Will!” Temeraire shouted, beating towards them. “I couldn't find them!”

Will screamed something back. Temeraire darted closer. Will’s handsome Chinese robe was streaked with soot and torn by flying splinters.

“No!” he heard Will shout. “Don’t worry about me, Temeraire! Go after the other ships-“

Then his voice was cut off as one of the soldiers rudely jerked him back, putting a hand over his mouth and a pistol to his head.

“Away!” the soldier shouted, his voice quivering.

Temeraire yelped. “Don’t shoot!”

“Away!” the soldier screamed again, and, perhaps taking inspiration from some story: “Begone, foul worm!”

Disdain and anguish clashed in Temeraire’s mind, but he could only manage a low, ringing howl of desperation. He winged backwards and off to the side, trying to make sense of what was happening around him and to think of a way to snatch Will from the Company’s claws.

From what he could see, the Company ships had lost all interest in the merchantmen now. With one shore battery after another silenced by the superior British artillery, _Nemesis_ was beating back towards the river mouth like a menacing fortress of steel, the white water vapour from her chimney mingling with black exhaust and sooty cannon-smoke. And one after the other, the rest of the Company’s fleet disengaged to follow in her wake. The only serious Chinese opposition came from the air, Temeraire realized, but Ning’s forces formed an efficient shield. She had summoned reinforcements from somewhere – there seemed many more dragons than before, although he could not make an accurate count. It was very hard to keep track of which dragon was fighting for whom, the defectors marked only by their lack of insignia, with small crews and more often than not only a lone rider to each beast, or nobody at all. The dragons from the shore garrisons far outnumbered them, but Ning's beasts made efficient work of intercepting and disordering the Chinese attacks on the ships, darting in with quick harrying manoeuvres to spoil their passes and herd them away to greater heights, with bombs and incendiaries dropping into the water.

Above it all, Ning drew lazy, majestic circles. Seeing Temeraire emerge bedraggled from the smoke, she inclined her head.

“Perhaps you would like to negotiate now?” she said, still with that appalling smugness.

 

\--

 

Will could feel the muzzle against his temple, cool and a little greasy, and trembling disconcertingly – the marine holding it was not accustomed to facing down a dragon.

“Put it down,” Will hissed. “He has gone, and you might jar it – and wouldn’t that be a waste.” Seeing Temeraire brought so low by so cheap a threat had driven him beyond being scared, only livid with anger. “And Temeraire is no _worm_.”

“Is that so,” the Company soldier remarked, his voice regaining a haughty tone now, but he lowered his weapon. “And you think you can order us about, just because that fiendish worm of yours-“

Will spun around and struck him squarely across the face. The man stumbled backwards with a shout against the poop deck’s railing, and away sideways to the point where it had been shattered by the shore battery’s cannons – here, he lost balance, arms flailing wildly, and then was gone, with a splash into the water below.

Will rushed to the side. The soldier beat to the water surface spluttering and shouting for help. His companion seemed torn between fetching a rope and keeping a guard on Will, and temporarily settled for the rope. Will stared at the water, churned with mud and thin swirling trails of dragon blood. The shore was two hundred yards away, but there were a few small rocks closer to the ship that might be reached swimming… He stepped to the breach, a hand raised to the fastenings of his clothes, ready to get them off before the silks could drag him down. But suddenly, the marine’s screams changed – to a pure, high screech of terror, interrupted by frantic splashing.

“Get me out, by God, I beg you have mercy, get me out! There’s something here!”

And then, with a jolt, he was pulled underwater. Will stared as a long, pale, sinuous body briefly breached the waves, as thick as his arm was long, with ragged trailing fins entirely unlike any shark or fish – webbed with five spines, much like a dragon’s wing.

He stepped back.

Behind him, the second marine dropped the rope and brought his rifle to his shoulder. “Don’t move!”

“Go ahead and shoot me, and Temeraire will sink your rotten fleet,” Will said, turning around.

The marine hesitated, but he kept his rifle where it was, a finger on the trigger. Will saw the faint pearls of sweat on his forehead.

“My, what is this little brawl,” Captain Smith said, climbing back up to join them on the poop deck. He seemed in excellent spirits, his cheeks reddened, his shirt and cravat impeccably clean, his boots polished to a sheen. If he noticed the missing soldier, he did not bother to remark – there were three more marines following him. “Calm yourself, Captain Laurence. Remember we are defending our rights – every Englishman’s rights.”

“This is no defense, but a blatant act of cowardly aggression!” Will shouted at him. “And this,” he drew out Lord Palmerston’s letter, “this was the spark you meant me to throw to the powder keg, because you needed some excuse to begin, like the wretched merchantman gave you? By the looks of it, you were perfectly prepared to attack!”

Smith waved a hand, stepping up to the broken railing. “Prepared… perhaps, as one has to be amongst savages,” he said and reopened his glass.

The heat of battle now raged around the forts flanking the strait of Bocca Tigris, the bottleneck entrance into the maze of river-arms leading on to Guangzhou. There was a faint ringing horn-signal in the distance, and suddenly, the Chinese dragons made a determined push throwing Ning’s forces a few hundred yards southwards. The river mouth was bright with streaming banners as some fifteen war junks drew up to shut off the way, an imposing wall of bright-painted hulls and billowing red sails.

“Splendid,” Captain Smith nodded. “I did not think them so foolish as to come out already.”

The Company warships quickly regrouped into a ragged, but effective line of battle. The two largest British armed merchantmen had abandoned the ships still anchored out at sea and joined the fray against the Chinese, heavy bulwarks amidst the more manoeuvrable frigates and sloops. Will looked around for the American clipper, but in the confusion and smoke, he could not see him anywhere. Then the signal to attack came again, and the Company’s greater firepower was turned to devastating advantage. The British ships could be brought around to get off two broadsides where the Chinese barely managed one. The junks were pounded to pieces. _Nemesis_ accounted for two in a single round of fire, barely hampered by the Chinese dragons: Two green beasts had managed to bull through the aerial defense and landed on her deck, pushing her low in the water. But no matter how hard they roared and clawed, they left nothing but scratches on the black-painted iron hull, and although one of her masts was broken and the rigging in tatters, she still moved steadily onwards, under full steam.

“Beautiful, isn’t she,” Captain Smith observed, watching through his glass. “A feat of engineering. An iron bow and watertight bulkheads – that is what I call dragon-proofing a vessel. If only her compass worked.” He laughed.

“This is no feat, but the meanest treachery!” Will spat. “Have you no conscience, no honour, no-“

“Enough of this haranguing,” Captain Smith sighed, “Gentlemen, pray keep him quiet.”

The marines looked at a loss for a moment. But then two of them seized hold of Will to turn his arms on his back, while a third used the crossbelt from his chest to tie his wrists, the buckles drawn tight, and his neckcloth for a gag. When Will tried to resist, one of the men drove his knee into his stomach hard enough to double him over onto the planks. He staggered back to his feet, tears of pain welling up in his eyes, but he bit down on the sour-tasting cloth to stifle any sound of pain. He did not want to give them the satisfaction of cowering before them.

“Very good,” Captain Smith nodded. “Show your beast how cheerful you are.”

The two Chinese dragons had been repelled by a group of Ning’s beasts and a dose of pepper, and the _Nemesis_ ’ thirty-pounders resumed their barrage of the junks.

“It is getting a little tiring,” Captain Smith commented dispassionately when one of _Volage_ ’s volleys caught two of the slow-turning junks at the same time, one of them exploding in an orange-blazing fireball when her magazine was struck. The Chinese cannons were fixed, and minutes passed between their rounds of fire, gleefully clocked by Captain Smith on his pocket-watch – where the British could get three broadsides off, the Chinese managed one, and that ragged. The ships’ engagement seemed a cold and mechanical affair, as none of the junks got close enough to attempt a boarding. A more equal battle was fought in the air, with Ning’s forces and the jalans hissing and clawing at one another. What the legions had in greater numbers, Ning’s deserters offset by stealth, again and again luring the heavily armed Chinese beasts into the range of the ships’ guns. The Company seemed remarkably well prepared for draconic attacks, perhaps, Will thought angrily, at Ning’s advice. They had pepper guns and canister shot that could be aimed at the sky. The Imperial squadrons were already taking terrible losses. 

The young lieutenant came running up to the poop deck again. “Sir, message just come from the dragons – the Qing forces have moved to occupy the factories at Canton and taken all foreigners there as prisoners,” he said. “ _Hyacinth_ has slipped through to attempt a defense, and Lady Ning’s dragons have bombarded the ammunition depot at the western fort which has set them back, but they will not be able to hold out very long. We need to break through.”

Another signal went up on the _Nemesis_.

Captain Smith nodded with satisfaction. “Very well. A dose of the Mysorean medicine to clear the way. The rockets, if you please!”

The rockets hissed skyward with ominous trails of fire and smoke from hatches built into the sides of the ships, straight into the Chinese aerial ranks. Some dragons were struck directly, others maimed or blinded by the explosions, plummeting from the sky with dreadful bellowing shrieks. Will wanted to shut his eyes and ears, but he could not. In the smoke and frenzy, he had lost all sense of time. The water of the bay was awash with blood and speckled with ash. He stood frozen and horrified, perfectly useless – worse than useless, a hobble on Temeraire’s wings.

Faced with the Congreve rockets, what remained of the jalans’ disciplined formations devolved into small groups, blinded and terrified, retreating towards the city. Will could not suppress a stifled noise of horror when one Emerald Green dragon who had persevered in his attack on the _Volage_ took a rocket to the chest. The force of the explosion flung the two red dragons flanking his sides far off their course. One of them joined the routed ranks in their retreat to Guangzhou, floundering and screaming in pain, one wing broken near the tip. The second dragon dropped to the water surface, below the inferno of the rockets, but well into the range of the ships’ guns. Will knew he would be torn apart by the next broadside, and, unable to bear watching it, directed his gaze upwards, with desperate hope. But Temeraire was nowhere to be seen.

Captain Smith laughed, watching through his glass. “I have never thought much of dragons before I met Madame Ning’s beasts, and they are fearsome devil-spawn, make no mistake. But it is very droll to see the ridiculous lengths to which they will go to preserve their so-called captains…“

There was a shattering roar next to the ship, and a moment later, _Volage_ ’s deck rolled violently, planks splintering under the force of a heavyweight dragon thudding against the side, claws digging deep into the painted wood and scrabbling for purchase. The next round of fire had been an instant late, and in some act of mad gallantry, the red Chinese dragon had made straight for the ship and now heaved himself up over the side. He was one of the lion-like Shao-lung, the ragged mane of scales on his neck bristling to make him look even bigger. _Volage_ groaned and swayed under his weight, her line of gun-ports pushed below the waterline. The dragon thrust his great head around searchingly, growling low with his maw hanging open, the double row of razor-sharp teeth perfectly visible. Then he set off across the deck straight towards the stern, the planking buckling under his massive talons, and batted aside the deck’s carronades like toys.

The marines quickly took up a defensive formation in front of Captain Smith and fired a volley. But the red beast only shook his head in irritation when the bullets hit him, little more than mosquito bites against the hard armour of his scales. He roared again and lashed out a talon. Two soldiers were brushed into the water to the mercy of whatever beasts were lurking there, another fell with his stomach gaping and bleeding, and the fourth was all but crushed against the splintering railing.

Captain Smith had drawn his sword, and with the other hand pulled Will back with him towards the stern railing. “All hands on deck!” he bellowed. “Repel the beast – a cannon straight on him! Bring out the axes and-“

A shot cut the air clean, and Smith choked and stared, a spreading crimson flower blooming on the impeccable white of his shirt. He opened and closed his mouth once, baffled. Then he slumped backwards.

The Chinese dragon’s rider thrust her spent pistol back into the silk strap around her waist and, jumping down, drew her own sword. Will stumbled backwards against the stern rigging and the lantern, desperately tugging on the shackles behind his back, stonily certain he would be the next victim.

But the Chinese aviator took his arm and turned him around, drawing a knife, and suddenly, he felt the belt falling away from his wrists. He pulled the gag from his mouth and spat after it, retching. The Chinese soldier’s hand was still merciless on his arm, dragging him towards the dragon. All rational senses told Will that being a prisoner of the Qing was hardly an improvement, but he went without resistance, and picked Captain Smith’s sword from the man’s limp grasp. The Shao-lung lowered his head to let them climb straight from the deck onto his neck and shoulders. He roared defiantly at the sailors still working frantically to secure the guns and bring one to bear, and lifted away with a jump that set _Volage_ on her beam-ends, water splashing onto the deck.

The other Company ships and dragons had noticed the loss of their hostage. The pepper-guns spoke frantically, and every broadside in range seemed aimed against them, the air thick with smoke and projectiles. The Chinese aviator quickly laced herself on and dodged low against her beasts’ back, pushing Will down in front of her and bending low over him to shield him. The Shao-lung beat above the range of the ships’ cannons, straining with all force, but two smaller, agile beasts from Ning’s army easily caught them up. They did not attack the red dragon directly, but came up to his sides. He tried to claw at them, but they evaded, and the next moment, two boarders had jumped across from one of the dragons.

“Down!” the Chinese captain yelled at Will, pointing at the harness straps and netting that went all around her dragon’s sides and to the belly. She plainly meant him to climb down and hide.

But without straps or carabiners, all he could do was to cling on for dear life while the dragon roared and met his attackers with teeth and claws. The Chinese aviator kept her footing with ease. She shot the first boarder before he could get close, then dodged away when the second brought her sword down on her, drawing her own blade. They fenced in a strange way, beleaguering each other for what seemed an eternity, and suddenly lunging forwards with quick spinning motions into a clash of blades from which the Shao-lung’s captain emerged victorious, driving the tip of her sword straight up her opponent’s neck.

She turned around and, catching sight of Will still cowering behind her, pointed again to the belly-netting. Will shook his head. He had enough of hiding behind others. She shook her head with an angry hiss, but, looking around, quickly picked up a curled length of rope from the harness and motioned at him to tie himself on. He made a double bow, the best he could manage, and got to his feet, gripping the naval sabre’s hilt tight. There was no time for more words. A rocket exploded a short distance away, blinding them, and when the green and violet blots had cleared from Will’s vision, another one of Ning’s dragons had pounced at them from above, depositing a whole handful of boarders. The Chinese aviator mercilessly disposed of one of them with a kick before the soldier could so much as tie on, and then crossed blades with another, a hulking figure taller than her, who drove her back towards the dragon’s shoulders. Will, with more luck than skill, managed to slash another of the boarders across the arm and then pushed him off to the side with a desperate shove. He tried to clamber across to the shoulders where the dragon’s captain was still hard pressed by the rebel soldier, but he could not undo his knot. So without much thought, he shouted, “Look here, you pig!” and, for want of anything else, hauled one of his boots at the man’s head.

The insulted soldier turned around and, with four quick steps, closed the gap between them. Will tried to draw back, but the rope drew taut and he could not flee, and was forced to bring up Smith's sabre to block the blow aimed for his head. The force of the impact shuddered through his arms, metal grating with a ringing and screeching noise – until suddenly, there was a sharp snap. The Chinese captain shot the soldier in the head and he slumped to the side, as Will stood staring at the lavishly decorated hilt in his hands and the short length of blade that remained. He hardly knew whether to be embarrassed at his own stupidity, or angry at Captain Smith’s brazenness, for joining battle armed with the same dress sword he had worn for Elliott’s conference, as if he expected no threat at all from the Chinese.

The Shao-lung’s captain did not pause to comment, but simply thrust her own sword into his hands as she rushed past to club another attacker across the temple with her pistol-butt, undoing the knot of the man's silk strap to send the body plummeting. Will found that if anything, being barefoot helped him keep a purchase on the slippery scales and ropes of the harness, and kicked away his other boot, before swinging the long Chinese sword against the last of the attackers, a young lad who had managed to push back to his feet after grappling with the Chinese legionary, flinging her a few steps back, to pounce on Will wielding a short blade. There was no bending or buckling this time, only a clean cut across the man’s throat, and suddenly, they were alone on the beast’s back.

“Thank you, Captain,” Will said, trying to catch his breath and lowering the sword. “Where are we going?”

Her eyes suddenly widened. “Watch out!” she screamed, and the next moment, Will was pulled off his feet, the sword sliding from his hands and tumbling away into the void. One of the boarders, the one she had struck across the head a moment ago, had somehow managed to cling on to the belly-netting and pull himself up to lock his arms around Will’s legs, and now pinned him down. The man's breath came in laboured gasps and his face was streaked with blood from the wound on his temple, but there was a wild look of determination in his eyes as he put a knife to Will’s throat.

The Chinese captain dropped to her knees, grasped the harness with both hands and shouted a quick command, and suddenly her dragon roared and spun around in the air, shaking himself violently. Will was flung off and fell, burning both his palms as he tried to clutch at the rope. Then there was the sudden halt of the rope painfully cutting into his waist, and the next moment, the dragon had righted himself again, flinging him against his side. The attacker was gone.

For a few heartbeats, Will simply clung to the netting, dizzy and exhausted. Then he took the Chinese captain's outstretched hand to clamber back up. Her dragon had shaken off the last of Ning’s pursuers, and Will could feel the beast gather up his strength into a last few powerful wingbeats. The air rushed in his ears as they soared through the ranks of the retreating legions, dropped precipitously, and finally came to a skidding halt on one of the thickly wooded islands of the delta, tree trunks splintering and cracking around them.

A thick green canopy stretched above their heads, a few trees felled by the dragon’s descent, but others tall enough to cover even his bulk.

The sun had long crossed its zenith. It was perhaps three or four in the afternoon, Will thought as he climbed down from the dragon’s back. The birdsong and croaking of frogs from the lush growth around him mingled strangely with the thunder of cannons and the periodic explosions of rockets, further and further north-west, drawing closer to the city with its million souls. With the crisp breeze of flying gone, Will broke into a sweat in the humid heat, and when he lifted a hand to wipe his brow, he realized he was trembling all over. He turned to look for the Chinese aviator.

She was walking around her dragon to survey his wounds, of which he had many, but most of them shallow by the looks. Then she coaxed him back to his feet to lead him to the shore, and made him drink from the river. Looking at him more closely now, the Shao-lung's ragged, bony frame seemed familiar. His harness of leather and yellow silk was slung on in a haphazard way and did not fit him well, pieces of rope laced in a few places to tighten and hold down the meshwork of straps, quite unlike the perfect tidiness Will had grown used to observing in the Chinese legionaries. But who was he to criticize, when they had just saved his life.

“Madam, you are injured!” he called, worried, when he noticed a large stain of blackened blood on the back of the Chinese aviator’s metal-studded leather armour.

“It is none of mine,” she said tiredly, her voice familiar, too, now that his ears were no longer deafened by cannon-fire. She knelt down at the shore and took off the pointed, plumed helmet, to splash water into her face, and when she turned to walk back, the helmet under her arm, there could be no mistake: It was Qiu Ji, and her dragon none other than Shun.

“But – what are you doing here?” Will asked, when he had overcome his bafflement. “Why are you fighting? Have they released you – have you been pardoned?”

“Your dragons bombarded the depot at the Western Fort,” she said, as if this were any explanation. “I heard you had gone to Humen and not returned. So I went looking for you.”

“They are not _my_ ships,” he said, ruffled – surely she could not still suspect him of being a spy, when she had witnessed the Company’s treatment of him. “Where is Temeraire – Lung Tien Xiang?”

“With the Lady of Cold Flame” she said, still not making much sense to him, and turned away.

“Wait!” he protested. “Where are you going?”

“Back,” she said, “They are moving on our city.” She put the helmet back on, her face once again concealed from view.

“No! Ji, don't! Your people don’t stand a chance. The Company is stronger! Lin Zexu may have more dragons, but their cannons and rockets-”

“We hardly need a _yi_ barbarian to tell us so,” she said sharply.

Will took a step back, raising his hands. “But you went to look for a _yi_ barbarian? What are you about?”

She did not reply, and instead pulled out her pistol to reload it.

“Look here, I’m sorry I lost your sword-“ he started again.

“It was not _my_ sword, kap-tan,” she said, muffled from where she had torn open a paper cartridge of powder.

“My name is Will. Fine. I am sorry I put you into trouble again. But think of your dragon – you can hardly want to see him torn to pieces by one of these Congreves? For the love of Shun, take him away now and flee! … I will not tell anyone I saw you.”

She looked at him levelly. “Why are you fretting? You asked me to get him killed. It will be more usefully achieved in honest battle, where I may go with him.”

“You know I did not mean it so!” he exclaimed. “And you cannot just leave me here on this island! I must get back to Temeraire!”

She jerked her head towards the river-mouth, where they sky was still swarming with dragons, and thrust the half-cocked pistol back in her belt. “Go there? No. My life is cheap, but yours is not. They are only waiting for you to try. And once the Army of Cold Flame have you back in their power, they will turn your dragon on the city.”

Will stared at her. “And you? Are you planning to turn him on-“

“I am not planning anything.” She hesitated. Then, low and hurried, she said: “I now understand what you did to help Shun, even if I did not see it before. I was in your debt. But we are even now.”

“No! Ji, it isn’t that simple. Temeraire might be in danger. He will…. He might…” Will broke off, unable to give it word. Desperation might drive Temeraire to unleash his roar against the Company ships, killing British sailors and officials with all evil consequences, even if it saved the city. The dreadful vision of Temeraire chained in a courtroom, court-martialled, banished to the breeding grounds for unmanageable beasts, forbidden from seeing his people, and it all his, Little Will’s, fault, was too much to bear. It would be better never to return home, in that case.

He gathered himself together. “What direction is the city? I must speak to Lin Zexu, to-“

“Lin Zexu is no longer in command. It is General Fang now,” Qiu Ji said.

“Then to this General Fang – anyone! They must give me permission to negotiate with Ning’s army, on their behalf. If they have made prisoners of the foreigners at Guangzhou, the Company will view it as license to do anything at all, and I am sorry to say my government will back them. Even if you repel them today, which is by no means likely, the Navy will burn your city to the ground in a few month's time!” He had one wild notion in his head, a mad one that was unlikely to be granted, but at the thought of Temeraire, he swallowed his doubts.

She looked at him for one long moment, and her expression in the shadow of the helmet wavered between confusion and suspicion. Then she jerked her head at Shun’s waiting talon. “Four _li_ to the north-west. You will never reach it walking. Climb up.”

 

\--

 

When he had beaten up to her, Temeraire had to exert his utmost power of self-control not to take Ning by the neck and shake her like the wilful hatchling she evidently still was. “Your awful Company soldiers have taken Will prisoner!” he snarled at her. “Will, my Laurence’s son – do you even understand what that means? Order them to give him back to me, at once!”

She managed to look a little saddened, but there was no remorse in her voice when she said: “No, I am sorry. I cannot do that just yet. But I will promise you they will take good care of him.”

“This is outrageous,” Temeraire shouted. “Have you ever heard of the virtue of filial piety?”

“Oh, I have,” she said. “They talk about it a good deal, but it seems very odd to me, that just because someone has taken the small trouble of siring, one should be indebted to them for life.”

“Because your elders are wise, and have seen more of the world!”

“Indeed? I can’t see how you have been particularly wise. You haven’t got an army, as far as I can see – and look how well mine is doing,” she said, her bragging tone reminding him of Iskierka. “The East India Company were very mulish at the start. They would not even speak to me and kept demanding some captain I did not have. But they have come around nicely. So have the dragons! They call us the Army of Cold Flame, have you heard? And that when we haven’t even got banners of our own. It just could not be managed in time, I did not expect to have to have to send them so soon,” she said, regretful, if only for the lack of colours.

“Because I don’t want or need an army, because I don’t go around picking quarrels for no reason at all!” Temeraire said angrily. He had to strain to keep up with Ning, who was climbing higher to get a better view of the final destruction of the junks at the river mouth, the awful scene framed by the irregular explosions of the rockets. As a last resort, the Chinese had made fire-rafts of small fishing boats and sampans towed up from the city and set them drifting towards the approaching Company ships. “And in any case, even if you win today, you will lose in the end! There is no use in you keeping Will prisoner.”

“Oh? How so?” she asked, watching in satisfaction as a blazing raft threatening one of the frigates was sunk with a single shot.

“Yes,” Temeraire growled. “The Company will not be allowed to keep their possessions in India, as they have done dreadful things to the dragons there. Their territories will come under the rule of the Crown direct. And then what will you do, when they stop shipping you your opium? Your army are all going to run away!”

“I am sure your government and me would be able to come to some... alternative arrangement,” Ning said amicably.

Temeraire gasped. The notion was hard to contradict, when he knew full well what some politicians would stoop to. “You might, if they are great cowards,” he finally conceded, “but I daresay my Laurence would not let it pass, not at all! He knows many people in parliament.” And half of those fine members hated him with a vengeance, Temeraire admitted privately, but Ning needn’t know that.

She nodded without paying proper attention, and instead watched the last of the fire rafts being doused by a few of her dragon mercenaries scooping water from the bay, without having achieved anything beyond slightly staining the paint on one of the Company ships.

“I have friends in India,” Temeraire continued angrily. “The Marathas don’t like the East India Company at all, and I daresay would be happy to form an alliance with the Chinese against the British – against the _Company_ , I mean” he corrected quickly, although he was not at all sanguine the Marathas would draw a distinction; they had not done so at Bombay. Aouda at least might understand, he told himself, when she had Tom Riley to worry about, and she might be able to sway the Peshwa – if only word could be sent to her, and to Admiral Harcourt, to make sure no more opium left the ports… He bitterly regretted that they had let Mr Bahadur stay behind. The gurkha would have had no trouble at all to see his messages delivered.

Ning did not reply, but continued her slow circles to survey the battle, her head held high. Watching her, Temeraire indignantly wondered what she expected him to do – to throw in with her, with the Company, against the Chinese? He shuddered to even consider it. No, there was no choice but to get Will out himself, as soon as a chance presented itself.

The guns of the fort at Bocca Tigris had been silenced, the fleet of junks reduced to pieces of colourful driftwood and stray masts poking from the churned water. The way to Guangzhou was free. The Company ships promptly adjusted their course to follow the _Nemesis_ ’ lead. But _Volage_ was lagging behind. Circling lower, Temeraire was shocked to see her listing heavily, with her rigging in disarray, the foremast broken and her railing smashed. And, Temeraire realized with a start, Will was gone, only a dark puddle of blood on the deck where he had stood.

Temeraire gave a terrible howl, whipped around in the air, and flung himself after the ships. Behind him, Ning shook her head in irritation and beat after him, gathering her own breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Caution:_  
>  _\- violence_  
>  _\- screwed up timeline (e.g. in reality-verse_ Nemesis _was not commissioned until 1840, Canton was not attacked until 1841)_


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Recapping: Despite Will's and Temeraire's efforts, the East India Company refuse to sign the bond against opium smuggling. A small merchant ship tries to circumvent the blockade and provides the Company's fleet with a welcome excuse to flatten the Chinese fortifications at the Pearl River mouth. Ning commands their aerial support of deserter dragons, former legionaries persecuted for opium smoking. Will is taken hostage by the Company, but the convict dragon Shun manages to rescue him. Devastated by Will's disappearance, Temeraire attacks Ning._

Shun set down in the courtyard of Shaming fort to the west of Guangzhou, one battered and bleeding Scarlet Flower amongst at least ten, and nobody paid them much mind. _Hyacinth_ had gotten her broadsides off against the walls of the fortress and launched several rockets before withdrawing into one of the side-channels of the river delta. Her bombardment had not quite silenced the guns of the fort, but one of her rockets had struck a powder depot to lay waste to a watchtower, open a crater in the courtyard, and cause a panic in the city. From aloft, Will had seen many of the inhabitants fleeing into the hills.

“Where now?” he whispered to Qiu Ji as they climbed down. She pointed at the imposing central building with its many-stepped roof.

“The General’s headquarters. I cannot come in with you,” she said without taking her hand off Shun’s ill-fitting harness, her burning urgency to be away again quite plain, and with almost a blow, Will understood: There had been no pardon.

“I see,” he said, and tailed off. He could not easily take his eyes away from the dark stains on her armour – not her armour at all, then, but taken from some fallen comrade. The front of the doublet was emblazoned with a yellow dragon, half-blotted out by its first owner’s crusted blood.

Qiu Ji startled when a quartermaster shouted across to her and pointed to a dozen screaming pigs and goats penned up for the returning dragons, a short distance away. She silently bowed in his direction without removing her helmet, and the man moved on to the next bedraggled crew. She nodded at Will and then took Shun to the feeding trough, the meat of the hastily slaughtered animals thrown before them raw and bloody, quite against the usual Chinese custom.

Will walked after them. “Wait. What are you going to do?”

“We will go back, and after that devil ship of theirs,” she said, distracted. Shun only prodded at his pig, and his sides were trembling after the exertion of the battle and flight. With a sharp note of worry, Will remembered he had not been dosed by Gong Su for almost two days now, and he was not sure how long the dragon could go without opium, by now. But they could hardly go looking for laudanum or anything like, under the circumstances.

“The devil ship – you mean… _Nemesis_?” he said. “Ji, no, you cannot! It has a-“ he paused, at a loss for the word for ‘steam engine’, and continued: “It is made of iron!”

“I saw as much,” she said flatly, without looking up from where she was gutting the pig’s belly with the help of a small knife, trying to make the meal more appealing to her dragon. She held the pig’s liver to Shun’s maw. “Just this much, Shun- _da_? Your favourite bite, for my sake?”

“But you don’t understand!” Will continued, quite forgetting to avert his eyes from the carnage. “Captain Smith has told me the ship has been built watertight. You can’t upend it like _Volage,_ nobody can! And look at Shun’s state-“

“Bannerman Chen! Finally!” someone bellowed behind them, and Qiu Ji froze, the pig’s liver still raised in her hand. A fierce-looking military man was walking straight towards them, his black silk robe embroidered with dragons.

She cast her eyes down, furtively wiping her bloodied hands. “Noble Commander Jiang,” she muttered. 

He cast a disapproving look at the carcass. “Find someone else to do this servant’s work for you, bannerman! We are all waiting for your report on the destruction of the barbaric ship – General Fang is impatient to see you and Lung Shao Tung!“

Will looked from one to the other in confusion. For a moment, Ji seemed poised to scramble up Shun’s back and spur him to be away. But then, she straightened her shoulders and nodded. “Honoured Commander, my dragon must rest. I beg for him to be excused. I will report,” she said. Shun had drawn back at the sight of Commander Jiang, the scales on his neck flattened down. Ji pointed at Will. “We have brought the Englishman back, Lung Tien Xiang’s companion. He too begs to speak to General Fang.”

Jiang nodded impatiently. “To your feet, then. Bring the barbarian along if you must, unworthy though he be.”

He led them to the gate of the central building and impatiently waved aside the guards. Will and Ji followed him past lines of officials and soldiers who hastily pressed themselves to the walls at the sight of the Commander’s robe and plumed hat. At a brief word from Jiang, the double doors to the General’s office were flung open, and they looked up at a grim and ancient yellow dragon, his scales translucent with age.

A cheer went up when Jiang announced Qiu Ji as “Bannerman Chen returned from the Humen”. Will followed two steps behind her rather like a prisoner, but nobody took much interest in him. Qiu Ji had taken off her helmet, but she kept her eyes fixed to the ground and when she knelt down to prostrate herself before the dragon, her untied hair fell into her face sweat-streaked and tangled, obscuring it.

“Chen of the Yellow Banner, we have been told of your daring action against the barbarians polluting the mouth of the Pearl River,” the old dragon said, gravely and rather overloud. “Therefore, we have chosen you and Lung Shao Tung for the honour of leading the charge on the ships as soon as our reinforcements arrive, to secure victory for our glorious Emperor.”

Will held his breath, startled. He could find no fault with Ji’s courage or soldierly skill, but to be promoted so, for disabling the small _Volage_ , left no doubts as to how disastrous the rest of the day had gone for the Chinese side. Lin Zexu was nowhere to be seen, but Will spotted his deputy Lung Li Zhao in a corner, next to a group of dragon bannermen – or rather, women – in the same metal-studded leather uniform Qiu Ji now wore, of different colours: green, blue and red to match her yellow.

“We are humbled by your generosity, Noble Lord, and the task you set us,” Qiu Ji muttered. One of the scribes next to the General dipped a pen in ink and began to write, in large, elegant characters – a set of orders, Will assumed.

He could not stay silent any longer.

“No, wait!” he said, stepping forward without waiting for permission to speak, and when Qiu Ji hastily gestured at him, he reluctantly knelt down next to her. “Sire, you are making a mistake! I am sorry Lung Tien Xiang and I have failed so completely in our attempt at negotiation. However, I beg you to be given one more chance. Let me speak with the Army of Cold Flame! Unless they can be persuaded to stop assisting the Company, you will be defeated and the town taken. You are entirely outgunned!”

General Fang lowered his fierce head to peer at him. Will waited for a handful of heartbeats, then repeated himself, louder. Behind him, enraged murmurs travelled the room like small hissing fires, the words _surrender, treason_ and _shame_ quite audible. Finally, General Fang snorted and flicked a talon.

“The _yi_ barbarian may speak,” he growled.

The scribe rose to his feet, carried over his large rustling sheet of paper and, frowning darkly, thrust a brush into Will’s hand.

Will stared at it, and with a sinking feeling read a few snatches of what had been written so far: not a set of orders at all, but a record of every word addressed to General Fang. He realized the ancient dragon was stone-deaf, and he expected to write out his request – an exercise in calligraphy, when the Company might be beating up the river towards the city at this very moment, and Temeraire caught in the fray.

“Is there nobody else who can…” he began, and looked around the room. But the assembled bannermen, officials and scribes quickly lowered their eyes. Evidently nobody wished to tarnish himself by association. Qiu Ji, too, kept her head lowered, her shoulders tense.

Will took a deep breath, dipped the paintbrush and tried to focus his mind on the first stroke. He imagined Temeraire behind him as he drew in the snow, in the mud, in the sand of a Peak hillside on a hot summer evening, Temeraire nudging his hand, _a bit more to the left – and don’t forget the upstroke there – that’s it…_

“You speak of defeat,” General Fang remarked, reading upside-down. “You claim a handful of barbaric ships can resist the strength of our legions.”

“General, I do not propose surrender, but-“ Will began, but the dragon only blinked at him. He bit his tongue and bent over the sheet again.

 _I do not propose surrender. Your legions are strong,_ he wrote. _But to sink the ships, their dragon support must be broken._

“Hmm,” General Fang rumbled. “That is no secret, Englishman. Our legions will make short work of a rabble of deserters!”

Will shook his head. _They have the English guns on their side._ _Without the guns they are nothing, and the ships are nothing without them._ _Allow me to offer clemency to the Army of Cold Flame, so they stop assisting your enemy._ _The addiction can be lifted._

“Indeed?” General Fang growled, drawing the rice paper towards himself to peer at it more closely.

One of the bannermen, wearing the sign of the blue dragon, stepped forward. She shot Will a cold glance, and with a start, he recognized Captain Lanfen. Qiu Ji hunched herself even smaller.

Lanfen bowed deeply. “Honoured General, you must not listen to the Englishman’s schemes. He only wishes to expose our forces and carry intelligence to our enemy. His dragon has already stayed with his treacherous daughter, Lung Tien Ning. He ought to be imprisoned with the other foreigners, and not be allowed to spread lies.”

The scribe happily penned these words for Fang’s consideration.

Incensed, Will dipped the brush again, the ink splattering as he wrote: _Lung Tien Xiang is no traitor. He is held against his will._

Captain Lanfen looked at him. “Will you prove your loyalty, then, and ask Lung Tien Xiang to fight with us?” she asked, coolly.

“No, I will not,” Will said, vaguely relieved he had already worked out this red line in his head – faced with Lanfen’s cold stare, he might otherwise have been tempted to relent.

Lanfen picked up one of the scribes’ brushes. _Yet he refuses to_ _join our cause_ , she wrote, neat calligraphy next to Will’s clumsy characters. _Such is the craven talk of barbarians._

General Fang still wavered. “How do you propose to lift the addiction, Englishman?” he asked. “What proof do you have?”

Will threw a glance at Qiu Ji, who still cowered motionless, and dipped the brush again. _On our way here -_

He startled and jarred his line. A scuffle had broken out at the door. A few soldiers and dragons hastily stepped aside as a group of men burst into the room. They stumbled under the weight of supporting another, an inert figure in the simple uniform of the prison guards. For a moment, Will thought he was dead, perhaps a victim of the bombardment, but then he saw the soldier straining to hold open his eyes, staring up with a madman’s gaze from where his head drooped limply.

“Most honoured General!” one of the soldiers began, gulping and trembling as he made his obeisances. “We beg your pardon for intruding to make a most disturbing report. We came for our change of the watch and found all our comrades struck down!” He pointed at the man. There were scratches across his face and hands, as if a vicious single-clawed animal had attacked him.

It took a while for the scribe to render this for Fang’s consideration, but Commander Jiang stepped forward menacingly. “How dare you waste the General’s time? This man is drunk or has tasted the poppy. We have more important matters to consider!”

The soldier whimpered. “Honoured Lord Commander, it is none of their fault! There’s a guard dragon similarly bewitched! The prisoner attacked them and escaped alongside her beast! The prisoner captain,“ his voice died to a whisper, “who was brought back by the Englishman. It is their black magic, like the way their devil-ship moves without sails or oars. And they will be working more of their spells as we speak. We are doomed!”

Captain Lanfen drew a sharp breath. The stricken prison guard did not stir in his comrade’s grasp, and only gasped for air like a fish hauled out of the water.

Jiang snorted. “Black magic… enough! Away with you, and the drunkards to the prisons, before I have all of you arrested! We will see how they speak later, once knives are put to their skin!”

“Bannerman Chen who brought the Englishman back,” Captain Lanfen broke in, icily. “Show us your face!”

Ji edged backwards as she rose. “Honoured General, the exemplary Bannerman Chen was killed at the Humen,” she said, quietly defiant. “I am Qiu Ji of the blue banner.”

With this, she rammed her elbow into the chest of the soldier who had jumped forward to grasp hold of her, sending him stumbling back, and bounded for the door. She did not get very far.

“No, please!” Will shouted as she was brutally wrestled to the floor by Fang’s guards. “Don’t hurt her, I beg you! There is an explanation for this, if only you will listen-” But the soldiers seized hold of him, too.

General Fang brushed aside the paper, no longer interested in the words the scribe was hastily writing for him. “Treason!” he roared, snapping his jaws at them, and then swung his head around to Captain Lanfen. “I thank you, bannerman, for uncovering this foul plot. We will do as you say. Imprison them with the foreigners! Their death shall be slow and painful, after we have cast the barbarians back into the sea! Tomorrow, Qiu Lanfen, _you_ shall lead the charge.”

 

\---

 

Dusk was settling rapidly, the crickets and frogs noisy and the mosquitoes descending in clouds, as Ning’s forces made their camp in the ruins of the Humen fort. To Temeraire’s great indignation, the two largest British merchantmen, _Sylph_ one of them, had unashamedly anchored nearby and allowed Ning’s army to make free of their cargo: hundreds of opium chests unloaded to be tucked away behind the soot-blackened walls.

Despite the victory of the day, the camp was not a happy one. There were no songs, no jokes, no clashing of cups as Temeraire had seen during the War, with Laurence. Most of the dragons were preoccupied with their opium pipes, the sweet smell permeating the air. Those captains and crew members who had not likewise succumbed to the blue smoke sat by the campfires and did not speak beyond the barest necessities. But he could not take advantage of the general stupor to make his escape: Ning’s lieutenants had devised a rota of watches with a strong, sober guard surrounding the camp at all times and four additional dragons following him around. To make things worse, with the smell of the cooking-fires wafting in his direction, Temeraire felt wretchedly hungry.

One by one, the Company ships assembled, and Captain Hall and Superintendent Elliot were rowed across to confer with Ning. Temeraire slumped down at the beach, his personal guard behind him. _Nemesis_ was anchored out in the deeper water. The Company’s steamship looked almost unscathed save a few talon-marks in her paint. A handful of sailors were busy sluicing blood from one side of her hull where a Chinese dragon had been taken by one of the thirty-two pounders. The remaining sailors and soldiers whiled away time shooting at the small serpents still crowding the water of the bay, feasting on the corpses of dragons and men.

“Let me go,” Temeraire demanded again when Ning stopped by to deliver a handsomely roasted and glazed oxen. His belly rumbled violently, and he had to summon all his strength to push it away untouched.

“I am sorry, we cannot. But would it not be sensible to stay with the winners, in any case?” she suggested, to add, in faintly wheedling tones: “With all your experience of battle, you must see that the Chinese will be forced to surrender.”

Temeraire growled angrily. _The winners,_ as if she had any right to use that word. She had not fought him when he had attacked her over Will’s disappearance, choosing instead to retreat behind her dragons. Temeraire had roared and clawed at them for a while in a blind rage, but one of them falling away from him bleeding – a Shao-lung, emaciated and miserable like Shun – had brought him to his senses. There was no use taking it out on them, misguided though they were.

“I will never join you,” he declared. “I trusted your men with Will, I let that Smith fellow take him away, and they betrayed me and killed him.”

She sighed. “The East India Company’s captains assured me nobody has harmed him. The blood you saw was their own captain’s. _Volage’s_ crew tell me a Chinese dragon snatched your companion away.”

Temeraire responded with the disdainful snort this story deserved. It was very like the Company to blame the Chinese for Will’s disappearance. “Where is the ship?” he demanded.

“Anchored beyond the South wall of the fortress,” Ning said. “You are welcome to inspect it. My scouts will be flying out to the city to gather intelligence, and I have asked them to keep an eye out for your companion.”

Temeraire did not thank her, busy trying to reign in the irrational, wild hope that threatened to take over his thoughts at the suggestion that Will was alive. There was no reason at all for the Chinese to rescue Will, he told himself, and if Ning made such transparently false promises, he needed to be on guard for her real purpose.

“I really don’t see why you are despairing over a single man. They are so easily lost,” she continued, brazenly, “and so small and short-lived besides. They have their uses – my emperor was in the habit of making me precious gifts – but there really is no sense in growing too fond of them. Free yourself from attachments, become the master of your own destiny. Just a thought.” She bowed to him and fluttered away again, not without a last meaningful look at the roast side of beef on its platter.

Temeraire stared after her, dumbstruck and cold despite the humid heat.

 _Volage_ was anchored in the shadow of the sacked fortress’ southern wall, having been towed there. She still listed heavily, but the holes in her hull had been patched and the water pumped out. Temeraire waded into the shallows to inspect her, but what he could see offered no clues. The marks of the Chinese dragon’s rampage across the deck were clearly visible, carronades’ cradles smashed and deck planks splintered. Temeraire stared at the broken masts and tangled rigging. He felt low and desperate, even worse than in the mountains when Will had been so very ill – then at least, Temeraire had known where he was, and had he died, he would have known for certain, which at this moment seemed a vast improvement over this lowering uncertainty, bright flickers of hope fading away to ever darker gloom as he considered the likely possibilities. Even if Will had not been killed on the _Volage_ after all _,_ if he had gotten away without being drowned or eaten by a serpent, he would now be all alone one on one of the islands of the delta, where any Chinese patrol would mistake him for a Company soldier. Temeraire batted at the small annoying crabs that tried to cram themselves between his toes, mistaking his feet for rocks under which to shelter.

“Will!” he roared into the falling darkness. “Where are you?”

But of course, only the guard dragons’ warning hisses answered him.

The fallen body of a legionary dragon had been washed up by the rising tide. Temeraire stared at it. He fought with himself a short while, then he took one of the stiff wings in his mouth and dragged the corpse back into deeper water. The serpents should have him: still better than being left to rot. A sailor’s burial, Laurence would have called it.

A short distance away, the Company captains returned to the beach to be rowed back to their ships.

“Bloody serpents, what a pest,” Captain Hall of _Nemesis_ sighed. “Once we’ve got control of the harbour, we must root them out. A danger to shipping and complicit in the Chinamen’s smuggling.”

Superintendent Elliot stayed silent as they climbed into their boat and the sailors pushed away from the beach.

Temeraire stared at the water and the pale reflection of the moon, further out towards the horizon, and suddenly startled, blinking in confusion – it was not the moon at all. The moon was a thin sliver in the sky, not strong enough to cast a reflection.

It was a large serpent with pearlescent grey scales, swimming up from the sea towards the body of the dead dragon. Temeraire stood in the shallows and watched as her head broke the surface, rearing.

She was spindly, but longer than him, much longer. Her spiky ruff was encrusted in barnacles and wreathed with kelp. There were many scars on her muscular body, marks from cannons and harpoons and the suckers of giant squid. At the sight of her, the guard dragons bowed their heads low, reverently, and edged away from the water.

“Good evening,” Temeraire said, politely but unflinching, as he had grown used to doing in his parliamentary days. “I am sorry we are disturbing the peace of your bay.” And, after a pause, he added: “I do not suppose you or any of your kin have seen a young sailor lost from a ship – that ship over there?” He pointed at _Volage._

The old serpent raised her head further until it was almost level with Temeraire’s and her body exposed to the withered forelegs, to peer at him with a pair of ancient eyes. The jowly membranes under her jaw billowed with every slow breath. Temeraire was not sure she understood him. Laurence said sea serpents were dull beasts, but Temeraire had often wondered how much this view owed to the teachings of the Navy, who notably also insisted dragons were dull beasts. He had asked Little Will about it once, but Will had shrugged his shoulders and said nobody knew, not even the learned professors at his university.

“You must leave,” Temeraire told the serpent, sadly. “The English are scared of you. They will try to drive you out of the bay, to poison you! They tried to poison the dragons of Europe once…” He broke off.

She continued to stare at him, unblinking. The serpents had no language, at least none any creature of land or sky could speak. Temeraire could not begin to imagine what thoughts might cross their minds, in their vast watery kingdom. Be he felt certain that the struggles of men and dragons must seem very small, by comparison.

Suddenly, the serpent let herself drop back into the water, splattering Temeraire’s sides and setting _Volage_ rolling violently. The next moment, she was gone, the faint iridescence of her scales gleaming under the water as she swam upriver in slow, sinuous curves. The body of the dead dragon still floated on the water, untouched.

 

\---

 

The prison at Shaming Fort had been deemed unusable, not only because of the damage from _Hyacinth’s_ bombardment, but also because the guards point-blank refused to return to the dark vaults where the foreigners’ evil spells had been cast. Instead, a legionary dragon ungently deposited Will and Qiu Ji on the quay in front of the factories where the foreign inhabitants of Guangzhou had been herded together, a huddled crowd of perhaps two hundred souls under a strong guard of Chinese soldiers with muskets and half a dozen legionary dragons.

It seemed an excessive display of force for the wretched prisoners: clerks, supervisors and dock hands, sailors of many colours and tongues, a group of Jesuit priests, and a Portuguese merchant’s family with a small crying child, all unarmed and unprepared, without baggage and provisions. At the edge of the quay near the water, Will spotted the brown dragon who had guided the clipper past the Company ships. With remarkable nerve, the small beast was representing to a much larger and fearsome looking Chinese dragon that he was _American,_ not British at all, and should therefore be allowed to take away his crew – a demand which appeared to be roundly denied. In the fast-settling darkness, the city walls loomed dark and hostile behind them, crested with the torches of the soldiers standing guard.

Next to him, Qiu Ji scrambled to her feet. Fang’s guard had stripped her of the dead bannerman’s uniform, leaving her with nothing but a bloodied shirt and torn trousers, but she barely seemed to notice her sorry state, her face pinched and worried: The guards who had escorted them now set about hobbling Shun with a toothed metal band locked around the dragon's chest, of a kind with the worst medieval contraptions Will had seen in museums, designed to humiliate as much as restrain. She tried to plead with the soldiers to strike her into irons instead, but the men only laughed. One of them brought his lance up to Shun’s neck, pushing the blade between the flattened scales until it scratched the skin and drew a drop of dark blood. Shun hissed and tried to spread his wings, but the metal teeth of the hobble bit deep into his delicate wing-membranes, and Ji backed down with a stifled cry.

One of the sailors squatting on the ground whistled. “Who’s that young pretty ‘un? Hello, bird!” he called, in English, and raised a hand to slap her thigh. His laughter mingled with that of the guards.

She swerved to avoid his hand, with nothing but a cold stare. But Will was seized with a sudden flare of anger at the Englishman, the callous words in the face of her misery. He grasped hold of the man‘s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Shut your dirty mouth and apologize-“

The man flinched. “Captain! I‘m sorry! Oh, I am sorry! I didn’t see she was with you, Sir, or I wouldn’t ‘ve said a thing!”

It was his own rifleman, Marlow, and behind him, Jenkins staggered to his feet. “Lord in 'eaven, it is you, Captain! Where is Temeraire?”

Will still stared confused and outraged when a high voice shouted “Uncle Will!”, and Isabella pushed her way through the crowd, recovering her dignity an arm’s length short of falling around his neck.

Nine-year-old Teddy Hawkes, following close behind her, had no such compunctions. “Captain! I knew you weren’t dead, although Laithwaite kept saying you were!” he burst out, jubilant, and huddled against Will’s side. Will hastily let go of Marlow’s arm. “I didn’t believe him at all, Sir, and I prayed for you every day!”

Riggs and Thorne were hurrying over to them now, and finally Mr Laithwaite. Will gently pushed Hawkes away, muttering, somewhat helplessly, “Come now, soldier.”

They called out questions one over the other, until Will raised his voice over the clamour to demand: “Where is Lieutenant Ingram?”

Silence fell. They exchanged glances, unsure, until Jenkins, the older of the riflemen, offered: “At Madras, Sir. Fiducia kept him, you see. Reapers, you know. They don’t like bein’ alone, it affects them badly. And before losing another beast, with the Indian coverts being so short an’ all, they let him have his bars…”

He did not offer any further comment, and Will did not press them, but from the looks they exchanged, he gathered they were less than enthusiastic about the promotion – as well they might be, losing the guidance of their only experienced officer, with him, Little Will, a poor enough replacement. Small relief to tell them that thanks to Fang’s sentence, they would soon be shot of him, too.

“Well, I am sure Captain Ingram will do his duty to his dragon and the Queen,” Will said, slowly. “But how did you reach here? We were looking for you on the merchant ships beyond the blockade.”

Isabella shook her head. “We’d have grown sour if we had stayed there. The Chinese are letting the Malays and Macassans anchor at Macao to do their trading. Our ship put in there and we took a boat up the river, a week ago.”

“A week ago? But… where have you been staying?” Will asked, staggered – the Chinese did not allow Europeans in the city proper, so the only thing he could imagine was that they had made use of the factories. “Does the Company know about you?”

Isabella shook her head. “I don’t think so. We have been staying with Uncle Sipho.”

“With…?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Uncle Sipho went to China to study the dragons here – you surely know he is a historian? I did not remember where exactly father wrote he’d gone, but with the Chinese so very squeamish about foreigners anywhere else in the country, I thought there was a chance he might be here. So we asked around, and indeed – Uncle Sipho?” she called.

A man turned his head from trying to mediate in the increasingly heated quarrel between the American dragon and the guards, and after excusing himself walked towards them. Will could not be surprised they had found him by word of mouth alone: There could hardly be another other man quite like him in Guangzhou, or even all of China.

Will vividly recalled Sipho’s brother, Captain Dlamini. Demane had been in the habit of calling on Laurence when summoned to London to make his formation’s reports, which had happened rather frequently – the admiralty had not found him as pliable a tool in the suppression of Irish unrest as they might have hoped, for a man without local ties to render him lenient. After a few years, Kulingile had been reassigned to Guyana, his immense bulk providing the most convincing argument in favour of the British presence there, while conveniently removing his troublesome captain from the admiralty’s eyes. Will had never become personally acquainted with Demane’s younger brother, but Laurence had mentioned Sipho’s name often enough alongside the fact that no British university had admitted him despite his outstanding reports. Will had grown used to thinking of the faceless Sipho with some resentment back then, given how much his father seemed to care about his being admitted to a university while giving precisely no encouragement to Little Will’s dream of attending such an institution.

Will had assumed Sipho had followed his brother to the Americas, or else returned to his home country at the Cape. However, evidently he had sought education and fortune elsewhere, and now possessed the peculiar quality of being simultaneously at ease with his surroundings and in jarring contrast with them. His skin was darker than Isabella’s, but his forehead was shaven and his curly hair braided into a queue in the Chinese manner. He wore the green gown presented for excellence in the Imperial examinations, and a small amber-coloured dragon followed him anxiously.

Will bowed to them, altogether too perplexed to say anything. Isabella looked uncertainly from one to the other, and Sipho inclined his head. He did not have his brother’s imposing, muscular build, being if anything a little on the portly side, but his smile was warm and he seemed undaunted by the spectacle around them, evidently no stranger to war and suffering.

“Captain Laurence, I am glad to see you. Your father mentioned your studies in his letters and I long wished to make your acquaintance. I would have travelled to England earlier, but Ying does not like travelling. – Lung Ya Ying, my companion,” Sipho said, and, switching to Chinese: “Ying, this is Will Laurence, my brother-in-law, the English captain Isabella Nofoto has been telling us about.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the dragon piped, and Will shot a quick glance at Isabella. She grimaced.

“Yes, I do have a middle name, although you lot can’t pronounce it right, so I don’t use it,” she whispered, answering the question he had not yet asked.

Will tried to turn a deaf ear. “And you, Sipho and Ying – I am very happy to meet you, and I thank you both for looking after my crew,” he said, hastily. “I hope they haven’t inconvenienced you.” He broke off when he realized the inappropriateness of this remark. Sipho and his Chinese dragon would hardly have been imprisoned alongside the foreigners, had they not been sheltering a band of British aviators.

Sipho nodded, graciously overlooking his embarrassment. “Where is Temeraire? We have been hoping for his return any day now.”

Will shook his head unhappily. “I don't know. We came here from the North, but the Company separated us.”

He quickly told them what come to pass, from their passage through India to their encounter with Shun, Qiu Ji and Lanfen, their journey across China, and finally their failed attempt at negotiation. “I last saw Temeraire with Ning at the Humen, before Captain Qiu brought me back,” he finished, low, “but he has not returned.”

This provoked much muttering and whispering, until Mr Laithwaite interrupted them bluntly.

“Well, I’m sure the lummox can look after himself, which cannot be said of you, Captain! No shoes, and what is your explanation for this?” He grasped Will’s hands and turned them over. Will blinked. His palms were raw and blistered, crusted with dirt and pieces of fibre from clutching at the rope when Shun had shaken off the boarder. He had been too distracted to notice, but looking at them now, he suddenly felt the pain.

Mr Laithwaite sighed and opened his case. Will was surprised the Chinese guards had not confiscated it, the dragon-sized bone saws, needles and trochars a respectable set of weapons in their own right. The surgeon produced a small bottle, soaked a rag and applied it to his palm, instantly magnifying the pain to a bright burn. Will stifled a scream, tears shooting to his eyes. He tried to wrench his hand away, but Laithwaite clasped his wrist with the equanimity of a man used to handling dragons. “Come now. It must be cleaned, or it will only grow worse.”

He shook his head and rummaged deeper in his case to extract a small, dark bottle of laudanum. Will stared at it, and when Laithwaite lifted it to his teeth to pull out the cork, he quickly put out his other hand. “No, I have no need. Give it here.”

Laithwaite lowered it again. “Well, if you don’t want it, I will-“

“Give me the bottle.”

Laithwaite’s frown deepened, but he shrugged his shoulders and handed it over.

Will tucked it away, drew a deep breath and held out his hands. “Thank you. Carry on.”

 

\--

 

Not long after dusk, Temeraire was roused by the rattle of anchor chains and the unmistakable sound of paddle wheels gathering speed. He pushed himself to his feet. The night was thick and dark, but torches had been lit on _Nemesis’_ deck. She was beating away upriver, tow ropes stretched to a trail of small rowing boats tied to her stern.

“What is happening?” Temeraire asked his guards – new faces, riderless beasts now, the previous shift stood down for their turn at the pipes. But they only puffed out their chests and would not tell him anything. Temeraire sat back on his haunches frustrated.

“What stupidity,” he muttered to himself, “to attack at night, when no dragon can see.”

“No,” one of the guard dragons hissed, “but we know the river mouth. Many of us have served here all our lives. We can follow the iron ship and give their garrisons a nasty surprise.”

“But why?” Temeraire sighed. “Why do you fight for the Company?”

“They killed my captain,” the guard growled, his voice thin with hatred. He was an old dragon with many scars and powder-burns, and short one eye. “She told me to hide when they found out I had taken to opium. She would not tell Commander Liang where I had gone, so his men brutalized her and cut her until she died, and then destroyed her ancestor’s shrine – my first and second companions’. I came back for them. I killed four soldiers and a mandarin. And afterwards, I joined Lady Ning’s army.”

Temeraire stared at him in appalled incredulity – not so much for the murders, but to imagine something so cruel done to one’s captain. He gathered himself. “I am sorry about your captain, and I can understand you are angry,” he said, cautiously, “but by helping the Company, you will only make it worse. They are the ones bringing the opium in the first place. Of course they are happy to let you fight for them while it suits them. But they do not care for you at all. Only think of the future!”

“I do not care for the future,” the dragon declared. “I am already dead. I died when they killed my companion. I only want their cruel officials to bow to us, and to spill their blood, Commander Liang’s and Lin Zexu’s most of all. They ordered the purging of the jalans.”

He broke off and quickly backed down at the sound of approaching wings. Ning descended.

“And I suppose you’ve come here to boast,” Temeraire hissed at her, annoyed. He would have liked to ask the guard dragon more questions.

“No, I have come to invite your opinion, most honoured sire,” Ning said. “One of my scouts tells me the dragon who attacked the ship and snatched away your captain is in the city. He brought an Englishman with him, who I suppose must be the one you are missing.”

Temeraire stared at her. “You have found Will?”

Everything else was suddenly forgotten. Part of him wanted to jump aloft at once and make straight for the city, but his guards bared their teeth at the first shiver of his wings. He folded them down again and impatiently clawed at the sand.

Ning nodded and gracefully seated herself, a picture of composure next to his fidgeting impatience. “Yes,” she said when the silence had been drawn out to her satisfaction. “He is held prisoner, alongside the other foreigners in the city. Now, I am wondering whether to tell my troops to look out for him and save him for your sake, since you are fighting with us, or to tell them they needn’t bother.”

Temeraire shivered with indignation at this cheap threat and bribe combined. “I do not believe you in the least,” he snarled. “What proof do you have that it is not some Company soldier your dragon saw? Or that you are not making it all up?”

She did not deign reply to this and only raised a foreleg to check her clean talons, lacquered a glossy black.

Temeraire growled. “I will come to the city with you and see for myself. If he is there, I will help you free the prisoners. If he is not, I will have nothing to do with your wretched fight, and you must let me go at once so I can look for him elsewhere.”

Ning bowed her head, satisfied. “Your help is greatly appreciated, Lung Tien Xiang.”

 

\--

 

Mr Laithwaite had bandaged Will’s hands, rendering them wholly useless, but there was nothing to do in any case and no question of sleep either, listening to their fellow prisoners’ whispers, prayers and conjectures on the crowded quay. They sat huddled together and watched the legions’ preparation for the expected onslaught, ammunition and incendiaries heaved onto the walls and stacked into the thick-walled towers, and small boats and barges packed with gunpowder to intercept the Company's ships. They had not received anything to eat, only brown-glazed jugs of water to share out between ten apiece. Once, a small dappled dragon without harness or signals had drawn very close. Their guards had reared their heads and two had jumped aloft at once, but the small beast had darted away at breakneck speed and disappeared in the direction of the river mouth.

Despite the bleak circumstances, Will could not deny that there was something curiously heartening in being with his crew again, united in purpose and their concern for Temeraire. They had made Shun as comfortable as they could by piling up a few wooden crates left abandoned on the quay so the dragon could lean on them to rest, with the metal teeth kept off the ground. Will had let Shun have the laudanum mixed in half their pitcher of water while Marlow and Jenkins set up a scuffle to distract the guards, with rather more exuberance than required, but under Will’s censorious glance they had meekly raised their caps to Qiu Ji when walking past her again. She had hesitated a moment, and then cautiously walked across to join them, sitting down next to Isabella.

The riflemen amused themselves by making hair-raising plans of ambush on Ning’s camp to rescue Temeraire, with Riggs and Thorne inclined to support them, while Isabella and Teddy sided with Sipho and maintained Temeraire needed no help and would come for them any moment now.  

“I understand the thing about the opium, but what else has this Chinese captain done, to be lumped in with us?” Laithwaite asked Will quietly, while the discussion raged on. “I haven’t seen them bringing up any other native prisoners.”

Will hesitated. “They think her a traitor for helping me, and for…” He broke off, uncertain, with an uncertain glance in her direction. Isabella had leant Ji her coat to pull over the rags of her shirt, for which he was glad given the riflemen's covert interest, but the aviator green looked decidedly odd on her.

“Your poison,” Ji said quietly in Chinese, guessing his question. “I heard the cannons and the walls shattering, and I was scared for Shun. I asked the guard what had happened, but he laughed at me. I did not mean to kill him. I… I scratched him with a pin dipped in your poison, the one I had prepared for Shun as you had told me to do.” She pointed to her head, the hairpin still conspicuous by its absence. “He fell. He was not dead when I left him, only… not moving. I took the poison with me and it worked for all of them, and even for the dragon guarding Shun’s prison. We got out and took the weapons from one of the dead dragons at Chuenpi, and once we had uniforms and armour, we could ask after you and Xiang.”

“A scratch with a pin, enough to paralyse a man?” Will asked, sitting back incredulous. “A dragon, even?”

She nodded and drew the green broadcloth around her shoulders, shivering despite the still-swelting heat. “Yes… you see why they call it black magic.”

 

\--

 

The Company meant to take Guangzhou pincer-fashion, advancing on the city in two columns north and south around Hanan island, and Ning split her forces to provide cover to the ships. The air stirred with a rush of wings as they swept past overhead, briefly blotting out the stars. The first round of cannon-shot exploded before the bells had struck the end of the morning watch, smoke going up from the Western fort, and battle was joined.

Temeraire held back with difficulty, whipping his head here and there to try and keep track, any moment hoping for, and at the same time dreading, the sight of Will caught up in the fray. Ning’s spy had said he was held at the factories. Temeraire saw their white facades gleaming in the light of dawn, beckoning to him.

The Chinese legions had not expected an attack in the early morning, and the sight of the Army of Cold Flame threw them into confusion and disarray. But once they had formed into their battle-formations, they burst forward again in a spirited attempt at the ships. Ning’s defenders met them, and the fighting devolved into angry knots of single combat, the advantage of the legions’ crews and armaments balanced by the agility and ruthlessness of Ning’s dragons. With vengeful equanimity, they slashed silk harnesses and snatched riders off their opponents’ backs to let them plummet to their deaths. More than one Chinese beast was driven into a headlong dive after the unfortunates, disordering their own ranks and leaving them exposed to the ships’ broadsides and rockets. The remaining legionary dragons grew guarded and defensive, and fell back on the city walls. The advance of the Eastern column was halted briefly when the defenders succeeded in stretching iron cables across a narrow part of river just before the Eastern fort, ensnaring _Alligator,_ but Ning’s dragons quickly drove them away while the sailors hacked at the cables to clear the way afresh. Then the tower of the Eastern fort had been silenced and its soldiers fled, routed, their cannons abandoned. The Company’s rowing boats disgorged their troops, mercenaries drawn from all corners of their far-flung territories, to move on the city across the paddy-fields.

Temeraire watched the Chinese retreat, sickened by the spectacle even from afar.

“Madame Ning commands we may go now,” a small dragon voice piped next to him. It was Ning’s small dappled spy, who had beaten up to him. “Our way is free.”

Temeraire flung himself after him, almost outpacing his guards in his impatience. He saw a massed crowd of people on the quay between the river and the city wall, and even a few dragons. Temeraire’s heart leapt when he spotted Will, his Will, and next to him – oh, could it be possible? His crew.

They all stood motionless and stared at the approaching dragons and the broadsides thundering against the city walls. Their quay lay exactly in the line of fire, and the Company’s ships showed no sign of slowing their bombardment, not even faced with a group of helpless prisoners.

Temeraire did not think. Rage fell like a red curtain. He whipped around in the air and roared at his guards, one falling away trailing wisps of blood from ears and mouth and the others recoiling with shrill cries of fear. Then he dove at the quay. “Will” he cried, “I am sorry I did not come earlier! They would not let me go!”

His crew were running towards him, waving and calling out to him. But Will stood frozen, his eyes widening, and then he lifted both his hands to his mouth to scream: “No, Temeraire, stay away! Behind you!”

Temeraire spiralled around to hover defensively in front of the quay. Ning shot down from the clouds and drew up opposite him.

“This is quite against our agreement,” she said, sternly. “You may not behave like a barbarian towards your guard, even in your agitated state of mind. You can see we were being honest about your companion, but you must do something for us in return. If you would be so kind as to bring down this wall for us.” She pointed a talon at the city wall with its towers, swarming with soldiers.

“Never!” Temeraire snarled. “If I roar at it, it will kill a great many men and fall down onto my people here, have you not considered that? Oh, of course you have not. You think yourself so clever and strong, but you only like to sit around and let others work for you, because you are too lazy and cowardly to do things for yourself! But I am not dancing to your tune. I am taking my captain and my crew, and if you want them, you may fight me for them.”

“Lazy and cowardly,” she hissed, her indifference shattered like a poorly fitting mask. “Lazy and cowardly indeed.”

Her sides swelled briefly, a quick rushing in of air, and then, without any especial show of effort, she opened her mouth to roar at the city’s walls.

 

\--

 

No stories had prepared Will for Ning’s roar: an eerie cry that made his skin crawl and his eardrums throb, culminating in a ball of white flame hurtling over their heads to strike the city's defences with the force of a lightning bolt.

For a split-second, the wall shivered under the force of the impact, every gap and mortice thrown into sharp illumination, a ghostly pattern searing on the eye. Then the massive stone wall seemed to burst from the inside out, torn apart by an immense force. The ground shook under their feet, and with almost a sigh, the entire Eastern stretch of the city wall collapsed, taking two towers and their gunpowder stores with it. The racket of tumbling walls, groaning beams and bright explosions mingled with a delayed roll of thunder that finally deafened all their ears. Ash, rubble and dust rushed across the quay like a vengeful tide all the way to the water, the sun drowned out by grey mists. Only the shrill cries of the guard dragons remained to indicate the direction of the sky as the beasts seized their crews and fled.

Shielded behind Shun’s body, Will, Qiu Ji and Isabella escaped being wholly buried by the wreckage. A ringing silence descended, and then Shun shook himself and scrambled upwards. They climbed up behind him coughing and blinded by dust. Will wiped his eyes and desperately looked around for Temeraire. But he could not see him in the haze, and his ears had been wholly deafened. In front of them, Guangzhou lay wrenched open to its invaders, the houses burning brightly where Ning’s breath had struck, flames spreading along the roofs like wildfire.

The Company’s troops, too, had been temporarily stunned by the spectacle, the ships' cannons silent. But already, the detachments on the shore rallied to march through the breach, bayonets at the ready. They did not pause to look at the bedraggled prisoners, some of whom fell to their knees to beg to be taken into the ships, while others dug in the rubble with bare and bleeding hands.

Gradually, Will became aware of Isabella tugging at his sleeve. “Teddy!” she shouted at him, her voice oddly muffled, and pointed a trembling finger at the tumbled mass of ruins. “Jenkins! Laithwaite! And-“

“Good God!” Will gasped.

They threw themselves at the wreckage. Shun had already thrust his nose into the rubble, sniffing, and was turning over slabs and pieces of masonry with his forelegs without a care for the hobble scoring his wings, trails of blood welling from his dusty hide around each metal tooth. Qiu Ji bit her lip, but did not stop him, and stepped up next to Will to help him lift away a crumpled and half-melted sheet of metal. The whole world narrowed to the lumps of stone and mortar before them, the ones that had swallowed his crew.

Riggs and his assistant Thorne had had the presence of mind to rush to the edge of the quay and jump into the water when the avalanche of searing hot stone had descended, and now pulled themselves out to join in the frantic search, ash and dust turning to clinging mud on their soaked bodies as they dug, and dug. Ying had caught hold of Sipho and beaten away just in time. She now came fluttering back, and without so much as a word, she and Sipho joined in the search.

Shun gave a triumphant roar and lifted a beam from one of the tower roofs. There was Jenkins, and curled up underneath him, shielded by his broad shoulders, little Teddy Hawkes. There were splinters embedded deeply in Jenkins’ arms and a bleeding wound to the back of his head, but he was conscious and breathing, and gripped Will’s and Ji’s hands hard as they pulled him up. Teddy Hawkes scrambled out behind him coated in dust, but otherwise unhurt. The boy made a few uneasy steps like a newborn deer and then stopped to stare at the crumpled body of a watch soldier they had dug out and discarded aside when they had seen there was nothing to be done for him.

Will grasped hold of Hawkes' small shoulders and turned him around. “Wait over there and don’t move!” he said and repeated himself shouting, until the boy finally nodded and trudged away to sit at the quay’s edge and stare at _Alligator_ at anchor, shivering and thunderstruck. He tried to order Isabella to do the same. But although silent tears streaked her cheeks, she put her jaw forward and shook her head, and then fell back to digging.

They found Riggs and Laithwaite only lightly injured, but Marlow looked pale and lifeless when they pulled him out underneath a slab. His skin had been seared by the heat of the stones baked under Ning’s breath and his right arm was twisted at a sickening angle. He made no sound when Ying lifted him up.

“Is he alive?” Will asked, anxiously.

“Yes, although that arm looks shattered rather than broken, and he would be better off if we had not wasted our laudanum on-“ Mr Laithwaite began abrasively, but Will’s scowl silenced him.

“We can take him to Xuehai Tang Academy,” Sipho suggested. “It is in the hills, well away from the fighting.”

Will hesitated. His ears were recovering a little now, and by degrees, he became aware of a low growling and hissing from the direction of the factories. The others had heard it to, heads turning. Suddenly, with a crash, the whole elegant neoclassical façade of the British factory was flattened to the ground by a claw-stroke, and they saw Ning and Temeraire snapping and clawing at one another, locked in a bitter fight.

Cold fear clutched at Will’s throat. Every impulse told him to run to Temeraire straight away, to throw himself between them and distract Ning whatever the cost. But Qiu Ji grasped his arm tightly and pointed at the sky. A Chinese formation was beating in their direction. 

 

\--

 

The city wall shattered and buried all the quay, and Temeraire threw himself at Ning. She flexed her talons to meet him. They went crashing down amidst the factory buildings, heedless in their rage, entangled. Ning was quick and strong, but Temeraire was the more experienced fighter. After a brief struggle, he had wrestled her to the ground, his claws at the delicate spot behind the wing-joints where the sinews gathered.

“Surrender!” he growled.

But she snaked herself around and clawed his belly. Temeraire had to arch away and let go of her. He forestalled her when she tried to slash at his neck, but could not quite restrain her, his grasp slipping on her glossy hard scales. He dodged another blow, then darted forward quickly, and his talons cut a deep gash in the pearlescent hide of her left forearm.

She flinched and stared. Pampered behind palace walls, she had likely never suffered an injury all her life, Temeraire thought.

“There!” he hissed angrily. “That is what pain feels like. Consider it before you order so many to spill their blood for you and these villains of the East India Company!”

She flared at him, her ruff wide and spreading. She was not looking at her arm at all, he realized, but at the city wall. “What did you make me do?” she howled. “What did you make me do?”

Temeraire backed down, his own ruff drooping at this outburst of plain madness. “What I _made_ you do? I did not make you do anything! You chose to roar at it, and to bury my crew! Oh, I will make you pay for this!”

And they were entangled once again in an angry hissing ball of claws and teeth, until Ning managed to pin one of Temeraire’s wings to the ground. He could not withdraw it without slitting the membranes, and was forced to cower in an indecorously hunched position.

“Now you will listen,” she panted. “You tell me I do not know what pain feels like? This _scratch_ is nothing. You have no idea how they treated me at court. How they whispered behind my back. _Look at her, the mongrel!”_

“You were the Emperor’s dragon!” Temeraire growled. “Was that not enough for you?”

“Oh, I was,” she shouted, “and I only meant to protect him. We could have had our own navy to bring the East India Company to heel, if he had let the Americans sell us some ships and proper guns and rockets and teach us how to use them. My Emperor could have been a great and splendid ruler if he had listened to me, rather than to his craven advisors who called me a British half-bred and claimed China does not need barbarians to help them.”

She paused to gulp for breath. Temeraire lay flattened to the ground and concentrated on keeping his wing still.

“You call me cowardly for not fighting?” she went on. “I can shatter the walls and burn down the city in a trice! But I did not want to. I wanted to defeat them with their own weapons, with their own bigotry and short-sightedness, with the dragons they shamed and trampled into the dust, and I was so close to winning! My Emperor would have finally seen my worth, and taken me back! And now you made me behave like the barbarian dragon they called me! Why did you do this to me?”

Temeraire growled, low. “Because you took my captain.” And he added, spitefully: “In any case, your Emperor will never have you back – what, after you conspired with his enemies just to show him how clever you are? Who would want someone like you? You know what? You _are_ a misbehaved mongrel.”

Something told him he had gone too far, but there was no time to reconsider or apologize. She howled shrilly and her claws were suddenly withdrawn as she gathered herself to roar straight at him. With the presence of mind born from many battle actions, Temeraire scrambled backwards and gathered himself, drawing breath. They stared at each other in the ruins of the British factory, papers settling around them like snow: receipts for tea and porcelain and lacquer boxes bought with silver and opium, the precious goods now trampled and broken in the ruins of the factory around them.

Suddenly, with a low keening noise, Ning jumped aloft and beat away.

Temeraire stared after her in confusion, slowly letting out his own breath. Then he realized where she was going: In the direction of the western wall, to complete the destruction of the city. For a moment, he lingered between the smashed shelves and overturned desks, terribly torn: His crew and Will were somewhere out on the quay, probably injured or dead. But his own daughter was about to repeat the terrible mayhem she had wrought, killing hundreds more if he let her, and Temeraire could not let it pass. He knew what Laurence would have liked him to do. He roared after her, and beat aloft in pursuit.

 

\--

 

The Qing judiciary surely had no equal, Will thought bitterly. The city wall had been reduced to dust, the town was burning, Company soldiers marched through the streets, and on their doorstep, two Celestial dragons were locked in a bitter duel – and yet, they could spare a formation to finish off a pair of supposed traitors.

They stood dust-covered and wretched as the formation set down on the ruined quay. There were ten beasts in all, their banners bright against the wreckage, and a large Emerald Glass dragon in the lead: Song, and Captain Lanfen climbing down from her back.

Lanfen wore a splendid suit of armour, black studded leather with embroidered blue dragons curling around the pauldrons and armoured skirt, their jade and ruby eyes winking with every step, and a silver-gilt helmet to mark the commanding rank General Fang had granted her. Qiu Ji leapt forward to throw herself down between Shun and Lanfen, baring her neck. “You may draw your sword and kill me now, aunt, and wash our family’s name clean, as I am guilty of all the sins you have called me, but spare my dragon – I beg you, spare my dragon and the foreigner who did not know my crimes when helping us.”

Lanfen frowned at her silently, and then walked on to Will, holding out a scroll of paper. Will took it, mechanically, and recognized his own untidy characters, surrounded by splattered ink: the sheet of rice-paper he had used in the conference with General Fang, and bundled up with it, another document stamped with a seal.

“Englishman,” Lanfen said stiffly. “Your request of an amnesty has been granted. We will keep our side of this treaty if you keep yours. Go and break their evil alliance, and there will be no prosecution or punishment for any beast or rider who chooses to return to our side, and none for your treason.”

She turned away quickly, as if delivering this message had cost her a great effort. Song bent down to nudge her reassuringly, and then handed her back up. A few members of her crew had been unloading bundles strapped against Song’s side, lining them up neatly amidst the rubble, and now stayed behind. Song called out a quick command to her formation and they took off, flying straight for the fire and smoke of the city.

Will stared after them for a moment, before the muffled noise of Temeraire’s and Ning’s struggle broke through his confusion. He heard Temeraire cry out, in anger or pain, and the papers were suddenly meaningless in his hand. He dropped them and ran, stumbling across the debris, in the direction of the factories. He slipped on a pile of scattered tiles and fell nearly headlong, but before he had managed to scramble back to his feet, Qiu Ji was there to pull him up.

“What are you doing?” she screamed at him. “This is foolishness!”

“Leave me alone,” he gasped and threw another glance at the factories, the low crash and hiss of the dragons’ duel continuing relentlessly. Isabella, Jenkins and the harnessmen were staring after them in confusion.  “Temeraire is…” He broke off. There was no plan in his head, no rational thought, he only knew Temeraire was in danger, and he could not stand by. He wrenched his arm free and set off again.

“Wait!” She easily caught him up, hampered as he was by his bandaged hands and the unfamiliar skirts of the Chinese robe. “You cannot throw yourself between Xiang and Ning. You will be crushed! And what help is that to anyone?”

They both startled at another hiss behind them. Ning burst from the wreckage of the factory, iridescent like a phoenix, to fling herself into the battle for the city. An instant later, Temeraire followed at her heels, roaring in angry pursuit.

Will slumped down on an upturned lintel lying amidst the wreckage, all strength suddenly drained from him. So Ning had succeeded. Temeraire had taken sides. It was only a matter of time before he would roar at the ships, and the Company would not only have conquered the city, but proven Temeraire an unmanageable beast, for which the British courts knew only one answer. It would break his father’s heart, and he, Little Will, had failed them all: Temeraire, his crew, his family.  

Qiu Ji was still talking at him at great speed, brandishing the paper like a sword, and her words reached him distantly. “…I would go, but they asked _you_ to negotiate with them, these orders are for _you_!” Seeing him stare dully, she paused, and then continued, quietly: “Listen, _kap-tan_ … Will. I know you fear for him. I know what it feels like to be separated from your dragon, like your heart has been torn out, and every hour the length of three years. But there is hope still – you have given us hope. If we turn the Army of Cold Flame away from the battle, all the legions can come to Lung Tien Xiang’s aid.” 

He did not try to argue, to say that Temeraire was not even his dragon at all. She was right about how he felt, and somehow, this allowed him to believe the rest of her words long enough to nod. He let himself be pulled to his feet and back to Shun and his crew. The handful of Chinese soldiers Song had left behind bowed to Qiu Ji, and one of them handed her a key. When she put it into the lock on Shun’s hobble, the iron jaws sprang apart. Shun stretched out his red wings with a bellow of relief.

If Qiu Ji felt moved, she did not show it. She called quick orders to the soldiers and they unrolled the bundles they had brought, a mass of leather and blue silk methodically laid out on the dusty ground to form the shape of a harness. She inspected it carefully and then directed Shun to step into it, and the soldiers scaled the dragon’s back to lace it up around his body. Ji observed while pulling on a suit of armour they had brought along also – the simple padded cotton of the rank and file of the legions, but tied with silk straps the same dark blue as Lanfen’s banner, and the ivory handle of her sword looked nothing but precious. She drew a sharp breath when she turned around the plain helmet to put it on, and a small jade pendant fell out of it.

“She kept it,” Ji muttered, staring at it. “Aunt Lanfen kept it for me.” She quickly bent down to pick it up from the rubble and the next moment, she had tied it around her neck. Will caught only a brief glance of the characters engraved on the amulet, and first thought they formed her name, but then he read more and realized it was the first line of a poem about weaving, an eccentric choice – he would have been hard pressed to imagine an activity less suited to her.

She quickly recovered from whatever affection the little gem had brought on, and stepped into Shun’s waiting claw to be handed up. The soldiers bowed to her as she went around to inspect the knots of the harness, with the easy authority of someone raised to their service which instantly reminded Will of Horatio. The sight of it put some heart back into him. He could never be like them, but he would not give up now, and spoil Ji’s chance at pardon and Horatio’s at having his dragon returned to him.

He cleared his throat and faced his crew, holding up the scroll. “I have been asked to negotiate with Ning’s army. I want you all to go with Mr Dlamini and Ting, to their academy, and do as they tell you. If any of the Company’s dragons are ready to repent, we will send them your way. Mr Jenkins, seeing as Lieutenant Ingram has left us, I appoint you in his place. I am sorry I have no bars to give you.” He looked ruefully at his own state and that of the crew, dusty and bedraggled, and quickly went on: “If I do not return, I trust you will take charge of the crew and make sure you find a ship back to England, with or,” he swallowed, “without Temeraire.”

In all likelihood, this was entirely out of the ordinary way. He could not properly judge Jenkins’ suitability against Corps standards, and in any case a promotion made by him – not confirmed in his tenuous post himself – would not hold water with the admiralty. None of the crew objected, however. It had been no coward rushing forward to shield their little runner from the collapsing wall. Jenkins stared at Will dumbstruck, and then hastened to bow, and to fail miserably trying to put a polished accent onto his Cornish tongue as he stammered: “Honoured, Sir, so very deeply honoured!”

Qiu Ji quite ruined the serenity of the moment by stepping up to Will holding a suit of armour that had lain at the bottom of the last bundle, likely another piece pilfered from its rightful owner: this one a blazing yellow embroidered with golden dragons. Will could not make head or tail of it, and in any case it was too pompous to bear scrutiny. But Ji shook her head when he tried to hand it back, with a censorious look at his torn and bloodied clothes, and wordlessly pulled the separate pieces over his head and limbs to tie up with the confusing array of silk straps, unceremoniously turning him around whenever she needed to move on to the next set of cords. She finally wrapped a silk strap around his waist in lieu of carabiner-belt, and handed him one of the curved Chinese swords. As a small victory, he managed to refuse a silver-gilt helmet in Lanfen’s fashion, after a short trial: apart from threatening to stifle him in the heat, it restricted his senses even worse than the padded Chinese armour. He could only wonder how Ji contrived to move about with her customary nimble ease, wearing a similar array – he for his part grimly resolved to be satisfied with anything short of falling off.

His crew had the grace not to laugh at him, and without anyone prompting them lined up to shake his hand before he climbed aboard Shun’s back, making Will feel even more like he was marching to his doom. Qiu Ji watched perched between Shun’s shoulders, plainly impatient not to lose another moment, and when Will clambered up, she batted his stumbling fingers away to tie the knot of his silk strap. Shun reared up and shook himself – this piece of routine at least familiar – and called out his assent, and they lifted away from the quay.

Once airborne, Will could see Temeraire perched on a stretch of the western wall between two watchtowers, snarling at Ning. The wall itself looked likely to buckle under his weight any moment, and Temeraire was dreadfully exposed to _Nemesis_ ’ guns, the ship lurking in the river underneath. For a moment all he could think of was to beg Ji to fly straight for him. But he stifled his despair, clutched the scroll of paper, and tried to think rationally.

“Their reserves,” he said, pointing out to the river mouth. “We should go for them first.”

She looked at him in surprise, as if she had not expected him to make any half-sensible suggestion, but then nodded and called directions to Shun.

The camp in the ruins of the Humen fort was a strange sight. Most of the dragons seemed wholly apathetic, curled up on the ground dozing without taking the faintest interest in the battle raging not ten miles away. The opium pipes lay cold, but the night’s heavy sweet smoke still hung in the air. Shun made a low, unhappy noise as they drew closer, and Qiu Ji bent over his neck to stroke him and whisper encouragement. Then a battalion of dragon guards rose up to meet them. Ji stood up in her straps.

“We come to bring a message from Commissioner Lin Zexu and General Fang!” she called.

Will rose to his feet more slowly, struggling to keep his balance. Shun could not hover with Temeraire’s elegant ease, and each wing-beat made the Shao-lung’s shoulders rise and fall like a ship’s deck in a gale. He bit his teeth and raised the scroll, red seals dangling. It would be very embarrassing to fall off now.

“The Commissioner and General grant you your lives and freedom, and a cure for the poppy’s addiction, if you lay down your arms and surrender,” he shouted.

All eyes were on him in his ridiculous get-up, the gaudy yellow armour blazing in the sun. For a moment, all was silent. Then, weapons were uncocked, talons lowered, and the lead dragon called out to her formation to stand down and motioned at Shun to land.

 

\--

 

“The devil ship,” Qiu Ji said, her voice hoarse from shouting. Will opened his mouth to protest, and shut it again, torn and unable to argue with her conclusion – sound, if terrible.

Not long ago, his heart had risen in desperate hope when a large portion of Ning’s reinforcements had taken to the air and, instead of following the signals calling them to the battle, turned east in a wide arc to fly for the hills, in the direction of Xuehai Tang academy. Evidently Sipho and Ying were successful at removing any lingering doubts at their intentions, because a few of them even returned to the battlefield to further spread word of the amnesty. The Company’s aerial support was thinning steadily.

But since then, negotiation had been a bitter struggle, and Shun’s strength was waning. Darting around the battle, the Army of Cold Flame often mistook him for an attacker, and while they hesitated in bafflement at the sight of Will’s armour, some of them seemed to be driven into an even worse rage by the sight of it, and needed to be roared down or batted away in order to make them listen. A few recognized Qiu Ji and Shun, old comrades-in-arms who had heard of their fate. But others proclaimed them liars trying to set a trap, or candidly declared they would rather die than live without opium, and lashed out at Shun. More than once, only a diving retreat had saved them, and by now, Shun’s sides were spattered with blood. The mission would have been a trying task for a dragon fully fed and in the best of health, Will thought, but Shun had been weak to begin with, and badly needed a rest.

And yet Temeraire and Ning were still locked in the struggle for the western wall, the battle strangely whittled down now that many of Ning’s dragons had retreated and a large portion of the legions drawn away to carry water from the river and extinguish the fires in the city, before the flames reached the last remaining powder depot at the seven-stepped pagoda and forced them to surrender for lack of ammunition. Seeing Temeraire guarding the wall, a few of the legionary dragons had rallied and started fresh attacks on the Company’s ships, foiling another attempted landing on the wrecked quay and driving _Alligator_ and _Hyacinth_ back out into the delta. In the soot-blackened streets of Guangzhou, Chinese soldiers drove the Company’s troops back towards the waterfront, and the yellow wings of General Fang could be glimpsed above the flame and smoke as the old Tatar dragon roared and threw himself after a detachment of Ning’s beasts. But _Nemesis_ with her guns and rockets still formed a solid anchor for the Company’s attack, beating up along the western channel. Captain Hall evidently meant to open a second front and attack the pagoda from the hills. No dragon had managed to break through to his ship, with Ning hovering above her like an angry guardian, rallying her remaining troops. Temeraire saw, and lifted off the wall to beat after her.

Will gave a startled gasp and scrambled to his feet.

“We are done here. We will take you to the academy,” Qiu Ji said with finality, pulling him back down.

“No,” Will said, gripping the sword’s hilt hard, painful in his raw palm where he had pulled off the bandages. “I will not leave Temeraire. And I will not allow you and Shun to be blown to pieces flying straight at that ship for the sake of your aunt’s honour, if that is what you mean to do.”

She stared at him a moment, eyes narrowing. “What else do you suggest?”

He tried to fight back the terror paralysing his thoughts at the sight of Temeraire circling Ning, hissing and clawing at her guard dragons to try and break through to her, and wracked his brain for details of _Resolution_ ’s engine he had heard from Riley. “The wheels,” he said.

But Qiu Ji was not listening to him, and instead stared ahead with an expression of incredulous dismay. There was a folly fort in the middle of the broad western river arm, crowned with a splendid red-and-gold pavilion. Several wooden jetties protruded far into the river in the shape of a star, bells and feeding troughs on each of them, and they now impeded _Nemesis_ ’ path. Her cannons were readied.

“No!” Qiu Ji mouthed. “The sea dragons’ pavilion – they cannot mean to…”

“The wheels,” Will repeated, louder, “they are not armoured.”

Qiu Ji considered this. Then, she called a quick command to Shun and he changed his course, darting down on one of the wooded islands to uproot a tree. He slashed away the upper branches, showering them both with leaves, and then lifted off again holding the slender trunk clasped in his talons to fling himself at _Nemesis_.

With Ning and her handful of dragons still distracted by Temeraire’s attack, the path was free. Shun’s first attempt fell short and the trunk struck the hull, a hollow sound ringing across the water like a gong. But on second try, he managed to thrust the tree deep into the cast-iron cage. It jammed against the wheel, which ground to a halt with a rasping and stuttering noise. _Nemesis_ was set drifting for the starboard shore in an unintentional half-circle, and her broadside missed the jetty and red pavilion, instead felling a stand of trees. The trunk buckled and groaned under the force of her engines.

They had been noticed, now, and two of Ning’s dragons – skinny, hollow-eyed beasts, one of them short an eye – flung themselves at them. Shun tried to beat away, but his wings trembled with exhaustion and he could not outpace the two dragons barrelling down on him from above, with outstretched claws.

Temeraire bellowed angrily and dove, catching hold of the one-eyed dragon’s tail to wrench him back and claw him around the neck. Shun doubled back on himself, flinging Will and Ji off his back and dangling in their straps, to meet the second attacker with teeth and claws. Will scoured his hands raw for a second time that day, his numbed head only able to fix on the thought that Laithwaite would scold – and then suddenly, the very riverbed seemed to rise up below them.

A large old serpent's head reared from the muddy silts, with a webbed ruff and large merciless eyes, to peer at _Nemesis’_ black-smoking chimney and stuttering wheels. On deck, the Company sailors and soldiers stumbled back. A splutter of rifle-fire went up to repel her, and with more gallantry than thought, they swivelled around of the mortars and directed it at the serpent’s neck. The explosion blinded her eyes and the ball tore away part of her ruff. She threw her head back bleeding and hissing in displeasure, and then darted down to pick the gun crew off the deck, throwing them into the air and into her open maw. Then, her hideous, muscular body reared from the water even higher, and shot forward to coil itself around the _Nemesis_.

The dragon who had attacked Shun turned tail and beat away for the hills, shrieking in terror.

“Give up!” Will heard Temeraire shout at Ning, far above. “Your troops are running away!”

He did not hear her reply. Shun whimpered like a dog driven into a corner, shuddering with an instinctive fear of the majestic sea-dragon, but Qiu Ji spoke to him imploringly until he circled around and came up next to the stricken ship. The metal hull groaned under the pressure of the serpent’s muscular body and her head thrust down greedily to feast on the panicked soldiers. Some of them jumped into the boats _Nemesis_ had towed, the ones intended for their landing, hacked through the tethering lines and pushed them out into the current of the river, heedless of the Chinese cannons and dragons waiting further downriver. Others, choosing captivity over certain doom, rushed towards Shun, arms raised pleadingly. Will caught Qiu Ji’s eye. She nodded. He stood up.

“Leave your weapons and come aboard in an orderly fashion!” he shouted at them in English. “Form a line!”

They stared up at him a moment, wholly taken aback, but then, fear swept away any hesitation. They filed up to scramble aboard while Qiu Ji climbed down to loosen the straps of the rigging so the men could tuck underneath it.

The door to the great cabin was flung open, and Captain Hall appeared, Superintendent Elliot close behind him. They froze at the sight of the spectacle on deck. The serpent paused and blinked at the men’s epaulettes and gleaming medals.

“Come up!” Will shouted at them. “Or it will have you in a moment!”

“I will not leave my ship,” Hall declared, stepping backwards.

Qiu Ji cocked her pistol and fired at the serpent, catching it in the eye. The beast jerked back an instant, howling. Will jumped down, grasped Captain Hall’s arm and pulled him towards Shun, where Elliot already sat pale and mute. Hall resisted.

“If I am to come out of this alive,” he fumed, “then only to testify against you in court, Laurence, you damned traitor! You will hang, like your wretched father should have done!”

Will stopped dead and let go of the man’s arm. “You will withdraw that insult,” he said.

“Watch out!” Qiu Ji screamed at him. The serpent’s head still hovered above them, the long fangs bared.

“You will withdraw your remark,” Will repeated, when Hall did not say anything, and reached for his sword. But he did not have a chance to draw it, before the furious head shot down again, and Captain Hall was gone.

Muddy water flooded across the deck. Will was flung off his feet and thrown against one of the serpent’s terrible coils, alongside two soot-covered boilermen and a small dark-eyed powder-boy who had scrambled out of one of the hatchways, pale and terrified. Water soaked through the padded Chinese armour and turned it into a clinging weight. But then Temeraire was there, darting down to snatch them from the deck as _Nemesis_ was dragged below the surface of the Pearl River, her chimneys choked by the churning water. All over the city and harbour, the Company’s colours were coming down.

Temeraire clasped Will tight and held him up to his face to nose him anxiously. “Oh, Will! Are you hurt?”

Will coughed, wiping silty water from his face and eyes. But before he could say anything, Temeraire drew back in surprise to peer at him, blinking at the scraps of yellow and gold that had not been wholly obscured by mud, and then exclaimed, with immense satisfaction: “Why, finally – you look like a prince!”


End file.
